


5 Times Soulmate Marks Made Things Easier

by ChaiFighter



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe- Soulmate Identifying Marks, M/M, there are 7 chapters because the +1 is in two parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9470171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaiFighter/pseuds/ChaiFighter
Summary: And one time they really, really didn't.





	1. Name

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmate aus are stupid, which is why I'm writing six of them.
> 
> Every chapter will be its own discrete universe and a different kind of soulmate mark. I hope someone pays enough attention appreciate that I have kept the integrity of all of them being physical marks, it caused a lot of problems in planning stages.

Yuuri’s letters are in Russian, and they’re pronounced “Victor Nikiforov.” Yuuri knows this from the age of three when his parents tell him so. Someday twenty years in the future his mother will love to tell the story of how they spent hours practicing writing and saying the words, so that Yuuri would know his soulmate from the moment he met him. “Victor Nikiforov,” they would chant together. “Victor Nikiforov.”

“Victor Nikiforov,” squeals Yuuko, and Yuuri’s head snaps around to stare, first at her in shock and then at the television, looking about ready to will himself through the screen and onto that faraway ice.

“Yuuri?” Yuuko asks, nonplussed.

“That’s-” he breathes and forgets to go on, still gazing in rapture at the screen until she prompts him. “I think that’s my soulmate.”

He throws himself into his skating with energy and abandon, and every day he races closer to the nebulous promise of _someday_. Someday they will stand on the same ice, and someday he will say his own name with a smile and Victor Nikiforov’s eyes will light up with recognition-

Someday. First he needs to perfect his triple axel.

“You could just go to him,” says Yuuko when he’s exhausted himself trying to master a new combination. “You’re soulmates, I’m sure he’d love you regardless of whether you can land quads.”

She’s probably right. Yuuri can’t rest, though, can’t stop to breathe, because when he does he starts thinking. He wonders what Victor Nikiforov, champion, will think of Katsuki Yuuri, can’t-land-a-quad-yet. He worries himself sick, starts stress eating, gains weight, panics, stresses some more. The only thing that pulls him out of it is endless practice, the soothing monotony of again, again, again. So that’s what he does, pushing Victor Nikiforov the human being far from his mind and smothering him instead with Victor Nikiforov, the genius and role model.

He works. Time passes. He rises

Flash forward: he wins nationals. Suddenly he is out there; the skating world is learning his name. He grows tense and anxious, wondering every day whether his name may finally have reached Victor Nikiforov’s ears. Does he know, wherever he is, that his soulmate is waiting in Japan? When no word comes Yuuri is slightly disappointed, but not surprised. He steels his resolve and sets his eyes higher.

The Grand Prix qualifiers are more of a blur than anything. Yuuri’s mind is on skating, only skating- Victor Nikiforov rarely features in his thoughts, absent for the first time in a decade. It’s a nice feeling, actually. It’s good to be reminded that he really skates because he loves the sport, not just because his soulmate is a skating legend. He knows that if he makes the Grand Prix Final that he will finally meet Victor Nikiforov in the flesh, but it’s suddenly a distant idea, outshone by the towering hurdle of qualifiers and the idea that Yuuri himself has somehow made it this far. It’s gratifying to see his years of work pay off.

Then he qualifies.

_He qualifies._

Fuck.

Yuuri steps off the plane and honestly wants to vomit. He’s in the same city as Victor Nikiforov. He’s going to skate in the same building, on the same ice, against Victor Nikiforov. _He’s skating in the Grand Prix Final._

This was a shit plan.

He can hardly sleep for days. Celestino tries to wrangle him into some semblance of order, but there’s only so much he can do. Yuuri is a walking disaster. It’s so bad he can’t even eat. That’s not something that’s ever happened to him before? Stress makes him eat more?? If he can’t eat, then there’s something seriously wrong with him.

The evening before the competition begins, Celestino sits him down and pep talks him. Yuuri nods and forces an unconvincing smile through most of it, until Celestino lets out a sigh like a punctured balloon.

“Yuuri, I can’t help you through this unless you work with me” He leans forward, elbows on the table hands folded. “What’s really bothering you?”

Yuuri stiffens- if it’s possible to get stiffer than he already was- and averts his eyes.”I don’t know. I’m just- freaking out. Stress. It’s the Grand Prix Final.”

“No. I’ve seen you nervous, and it doesn’t look like this. You don’t look dead- or,” he amends, “you don’t look only dead. You look hunted. You’re jumpy and you seem to be looking over your shoulder constantly. What are you not telling me?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing!”

Taken aback, Yuuri meets Celestino’s eyes. His coach looks concerned- worried, even a little angry.

“Yuuri, do you feel safe?”

“What?” Truly thrown now, Yuuri can’t do anything but blink as Celestino goes on.

“If someone is harrassing you, there are steps we can take to remove them and keep them away from you. There’s no reason-”

“That’s not it,” says Yuuri. “That is really, definitely not it. If anything it’s someone who I haven’t seen that’s the problem.”

Relief, suspicion, and curiosity fight for a place on Celestino’s features. Yuuri sighs. In for a penny, in for a pound.

He taps his chest, a little to the left. “Victor Nikiforov.”

A beat of silence.

“Well,” says Celestino. “Not what I was thinking.”

Yuuri doesn’t sleep more than an hour that night. He wakes with dark circles beneath his eyes, aches in his limbs, and a pounding headache.

Today he’s a competitor in the Grand Prix Final.

...His first order of business is to scramble for the bathroom to vomit.

He and Celestino battle their way through the sea of people to spill into the abrupt quiet of the restricted back hallways. Yuuri sways on his feet. Celestino grabs him by the arm to steady him and says… something. A lot of words. Yuuri doesn’t really hear it. Everything in his head is sort of blurry, like paints with too much water.

“...ri. Yuuri!” Celestino takes him by the shoulders. Yuuri looks up at him blankly. He swears. “Okay, that’s it. We’re going right now and we are finding Nikiforov.”

“Wha-- no!” But Celestino is already dragging him through the building, following the periodic brightly--colored signs pointing the way to the rink. “Stop!”

“No. You need to get out of your own head, and the way to do that is to get this over with _before_ you’re skating in front of the whole world.” He slows, softens slightly. “You’ve worked so hard for this, Yuuri. If this might help you perform the way I know you can, you need to do it.”

The idea of facing Victor Nikiforov - the idea and the man both - right now makes Yuuri want to vomit again. Then he thinks about going out on the ice like this and facing Victor Nikiforov after that ever.

“Okay,” he hears himself say. And so they go.

Entering the arena, Yuuri is immediately struck by how _big_ it is. There’s so much space-- so many people-- so many eyes-- he feels woozy. This is not good.

“Steady,” says Celestino, still holding his arm. That hold is probably the only reason Yuuri is still standing. “Look for him.”

But there are so many people, so much motion. Faces, hands, limbs all about, all moving, he can't focus like this. Everyone blurs together, there’s--

Blue eyes.

The world falls away.

They run and meet halfway, stopping with six feet between them. Yuuri searches his face, cataloguing all the small ways he seems different off the screen. His skin looks warmer, softer somehow in breathing life. His hair too, soft enough to glide fingers through. He looks tangible. He looks real.

_He looks mine._

They stand perfectly still, drinking each other in. Then they stand still another minute, unsure how to begin. It gets genuinely awkward when they’re on the third minute. At this point they have an audience of respectable size, whispering, wondering about the fuss, whether it’s what they suspect it might be.

It’s Victor who finally breaks it. He steps forward, closing two feet of the gap.

“I’m Victor Nikiforov,” he says, and he extends a hand.

Yuuri is frozen, staring at the hand just long enough for Victor’s smile to begin to waver. Then he gathers himself, closes two more feet, and takes the hand.

“K-Katsuki Yuuri,” he says.

One of them pulls-- maybe they both do. And the final two feet vanish, smoke on a brisk winter wind.


	2. Timer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the huge response to Chapter 1! I honestly never expected this much attention. 
> 
> My beta also deserves a shoutout this chapter for fixing some important character things. You honestly do not want to know what it looked like before they did.

Victor is going to meet his soulmate when he is twenty seven years old. He calculates the moment to the day when he is eight, then forgets about it. That meeting is nearly two decades away; he has other things to think about for the time being.

When he is ten he falls prey to a wave of speculation that surges through his classmates and begins to wonder what it might be like, seventeen years from now, to have a soulmate. He slides into daydreams about it, building up more and more elaborate fantasies about their meeting. It'll be sunset. It'll be somewhere abroad. It'll be life or death.

In every scenario, his other half skates. After the romance, or the drama, or the espionage, or the high society, they always find time to skate together.

His then-coach (this is before Yakov) catches on eventually that his mind is straying from practices and talks to his mother, who laughs.

“He’s a child,” she says. “This is what children do. Don't worry, it'll pass. He loves skating too much to ever truly stray.”

And she is right. By the time Victor turns eleven his soulmate is just a number again, and he's begun wearing a cuff on his wrist to cover his timer while skating, as is the practice in performance activities and professions. After only a few months of this he stops ever taking it off, more out of convenience than anything. He’s on the ice more often than not. He may as well leave the thing on.

His mother dies when he is fourteen. Heart attack; she is young for it. Victor had known she was older than most of his classmates’ mothers, but this--

His father, distant to begin with, shuts himself away in the bedroom, eating listlessly when Victor feeds him, rising once or twice a day to shuffle to the bathroom. Victor, adrift himself, feels his father’s pain like a pitch and toss of sea, the very ground lurching beneath his feet. A clammy thing coils in the bottom of his stomach and rises like bile to the back of his throat, strangling his heart within his chest until he cries.

His mother was always the force behind his skating. She loved the ice with the passion an artist has for blank canvas, and her son with that for paint. The first time Victor tries to skate after her death, he nearly vomits. After he is finished dry heaving, he tenses his shaking legs and forces them onward again. By the end of the day, he has jumped and landed so many times that his knees feel like they’ll buckle if he tries again. His eyes are swollen and red, and exhaustion fills his every limb-- not the pleasant weariness of a practice well done, but the wrung-out weight of a body that will go no further.

Taking off his skates, his eye catches on the cuff around his wrist. He is transported for a moment to his father’s side, as his father rolls up his sleeve to find an empty space where a neat line of zeros once stood. He imagines the finality of that absence. He imagines the searching, over and over again, for something that will never be there. He imagines, someday, finding his perfect person, skating with them, loving them, and losing them.

The next day, he drags his father to the animal shelter and bulldozes his way through the place until he walks out with a poodle puppy.

Something settles inside him once he has Makkachin, shifting at last to rearrange itself around the way things now are. He redirects his grief into his skating, striving for the medals he missed last season, hoping that if there is an afterlife his mother can see his efforts. He has this season to conquer the Juniors once and for all, and then it’s on to bigger things. Places to go, people to beat.

Victor takes the Junior leagues for everything they have and a little extra, and he roars into full competition with all the strength of a hurricane. He’s already made a name for himself in the Juniors, but now he’s on the world stage. He is determined that within five years everyone will know exactly who he is-- and they do. He charts a meteoric rise from better to best. Replay videos of his jumps flood networks and the internet, long hair tracing graceful arcs across screens.

“Again,” says Yakov, endlessly. And Victor does it again.

The world has never seemed so vibrant, so alive. He learns anew to smile for cameras. Shrieks of adoration follow him about. The pounding of his heart in his chest when he takes to the ice grows headier by the day as his audience swells, scores of new people to shock. He learns to live for their wide eyes and open mouths, the awe on their breath when they speak of him.

“Again.” So he obeys.

Victory hangs in the air about him, fragrant and sweet. He leaps and he lands, he leaps and he lands. He rises, rises. He smiles for pictures. A journalist looking for a cheap scoop asks him about his timer and he realizes with a start that he hasn’t thought about it in ages-- that he doesn’t even remember when it’s supposed to zero out. He grins and makes a remark about his timer being yet another surprise, and the journalist laughs good-naturedly, conceding.

“Again.”

He loves skating. He loves it like breathing, like the blood in his veins and the bite of wind on his cheeks. He skates for his mother, but he also skates for himself, for the coursing of adrenaline, for the flight of a quad, for the glide, for the lights, for the slice of sharpened blades.

“Again.”

He wins the World Championship. And he wins it again, and again, and again--

_I’m proud of you_ , reads an email one day, sent to his public address. There are no other words; it is unsigned. The sender has no real identification in their username. Victor replies to it like the rest of his fanmail, cheerful and impersonal, and quietly marks the message to keep.

“Again.”

So he wins again.

When Victor is twenty six years old, he looks down at the cuff on his wrist. He hasn’t taken it off save for bathing since he was thirteen, and he hasn’t examined the numbers in nearly a decade. He remembers the age he will be - twenty seven - but not the month or the date. He wonders if his soulmate will be one of his fans. He would prefer that they weren’t.

He turns twenty seven in Sochi. Yakov gives him a gruff pat on the shoulder and a grudging, passive-aggressive congratulations, much as he has every year since becoming Victor’s coach. Fans across social media inundate his accounts with happy birthday messages, and Victor smiles a little at all of them.

In the smallest morning hours, he picks at the edge of his cuff, tempted beyond measure. It will happen soon. He will meet his soulmate within the year. Makkachin snuffles at the back of his neck and he scratches her absently behind the ears. He could just check.

He rolls over. Makkachin flops down and demands a belly rub. He obliges. It keeps his hands busy, and there is no more picking at timer cuffs.

The Grand Prix Finals roll up within the week. He wins, again. It’s elating - he does enjoy winning - but when the adrenaline and the shine of another gold medal have worn off he wonders whether anyone in the audience with an inkling of his record could have been surprised by his performance. The only answer he can find is no.

He packs up, says his parting words, gives a few good soundbites to the media and heads out with Yakov and the rest of the Russian unit. He’s nearly to the door, saying something harmless to Yuri, when he notices someone out of the corner of his eye staring. He makes a point to be nice to fans, so he starts to lift his hand and make an offer to take a photo. Their eyes meet.

_Click_.

He doesn’t recognize the feeling for what it is until he watches the young man frantically claw his wrist cuff open and stare blankly at his timer. Slowly, Victor unclasps his own cuff and forces himself to look.

Zeros.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” says Yuri behind him.

The man’s face is perfectly blank, dark circles plain beneath his eyes. He looks familiar-- wait, he was the Japanese competitor! Katsuki Yuuri. Victor opens his mouth to say something about his skating that, depending on exactly how the words come out, might either come off as positive or passive aggressive, when Yuuri snaps an about face and marches away.

That was not part of the plan. Victor shoves his suitcase at Yuri. “Watch my luggage, would you?” Without waiting for a reply he sprints away in the direction Yuuri went. A halfhearted “You suck, Nikiforov!” drifts after him.

Yuuri hasn’t gotten far when Victor catches up, but he looks much worse for the brief journey. His eyes are overbright, his face has grown red, and he looks incredibly tired.

“L-Leave me alone,” he says miserably, lip trembling. “Please.”

Victor holds up his wrist, showing him the row of zeros. It has the opposite of the intended effect, as Yuuri nearly bursts into tears.

“Just--” he says between hitched breaths. “Just g-go. I can’t--”

Victor steps cautiously closer. Through the racing of his mind he tries to figure out what this is about. Is it to do with Victor? Does Yuuri hate him for some reason? No, that wasn’t the feeling he’d gotten when Yuuri had been staring just before the timer went. Is it just an emotional overload? That wouldn’t be an unreasonable idea. Yuuri’s short program had been respectable, but his free skate was a disaster. Victor had gotten the feeling that he wasn’t actually there in the rink, his mind far away where something terrible was happening. Maybe the stress of the magnitude of the loss has finally been pushed past the tipping point with the timer.

“Is this a stress snap?” he asks, realizing too late that the question had sounded a lot less insensitive in his head.

To his surprise, though, after a moment of stunned silence Yuuri actually laughs, hysterical and wobbling though it may be. “S-Sure, yeah. You could call it that.”

“Well.” Victor casts about for something to say. Nothing useful is immediately forthcoming, so for lack of a better approach he treats it like a dead end in choreography: scrap it and begin again. “Let's start over, then?”

Yuuri just looks desperately confused. He seems very small and rumpledy right now. Victor feels a vague urge to gather him up and squish him.

“Hi,” Victor prompts. He reaches out carefully to take Yuuri’s left hand in his right. “I'm Victor Nikiforov. I think we’re soulmates.”

A lifetime seems to pass before Yuuri responds. In that lifetime, Victor has time for flashes of thought about timers, and his parents, and the finite lifespan of human beings. He has time to marvel at the warm weight of Yuuri’s hand in his, and the gentle lines of his features, no stunning beauty, but lovely nonetheless. He has time to think, _I will not let this man go_ , and to be scared of what that may mean, and to not care about the fear at all.

Finally, after this eternity, Yuuri takes Victor’s other hand.

“I'm. I'm Katsuki Yuuri. I--” his voice drops to a bare whisper. “I think you might be right.”

When his heart has settled once more into functional time, Victor can't resist adding, “I’m always right.” Yuuri laughs. He’s actually crying at this point, and Victor finds that his own vision is happily blurred. Happy-crying. He hasn’t felt that in a long time.

On a whim he gently moves Yuuri’s hand to turn up the zeros and places his own next to it. They’re beautiful like that, side by side, a single line of perfect ovals to link the two of them together. Victor is struck by a sudden realization that this is the start of his forever. There is no more waiting, no more wondering, no more fiddling with timer cuffs. This is it.

“This is the start,” he murmurs to his soulmate.

And oh, what a story is to follow.


	3. First Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I am just amazed by the amount of response. Thank you all so much for your support. 
> 
> Shoutout once again to my fabulous beta! This chapter would be about a thousand words shorter and a hella lot dumber without their help. 
> 
> I think of this chapter as the Cinderella chapter. Take from that what you will.
> 
> Edit: Figured out the chapter number! It's now listed correctly as incomplete. Sorry for any confusion

The first sign of something amiss is the slight surge in murmuring on the other side of the room. Victor has been to enough of these parties to know it could be something as insignificant as a new platter of food being brought out, so he ignores it.

The second sign is the number of heads turned in a single direction, though many of them seem to only be half-watching whatever it is. Victor takes more notice of this - skaters are generally odd people, so if something holds their attention it’s probably pretty strange - and politely excuses himself from conversation to investigate.

The third, definitive sign happens while he is making his way across the room. A drawn-out, “Heeeeey!” and the flutter of a loose tie flicked above onlookers’ heads signal the nature of the disruption and the exact location it is coming from. Victor walks faster.

The tie, it turns out, belongs to Katsuki Yuuri, the Japanese competitor in the Grand Prix Final, currently roaringly drunk. There is soft violin music over the ceiling speakers - the banquet is too classy for anything else - but he is dancing to an imaginary beat that is apparently worthy of ferocious booty-swinging. As Victor watches, he snags an entire bottle of champagne from a nearby table and begins treating it almost like a dance partner. Smirking, Victor quietly pulls out his phone and snaps a few pictures.

“Heeeey,” Yuuri calls again, and seems to forget where he was going with the sentence. He pauses in his dance with an expression of exaggerated thought, then laughs aloud when he finds his words again. “Music! Who has music?”

 _Who would have music?_ Victor thinks-- and then someone in the crowd gives a cheer and starts blasting Beyonce out of a portable speaker. Because someone brought a portable speaker to a formal banquet. Victor’s grin widens.

This is going to be fun.

He finds a glass of champagne and downs it. Then he hunts down Yuri Plisetsky, who is hiding in a corner on the other end of the room.

“I found something you’ll like,” Victor sing-songs.

“Piss off,” says Yuri. Someone chose a dark blue suit for him. In Victor’s expert opinion, it is not really his color.

Unfazed by the death glare leveled his way, Victor tries again. “Drunken shenanigans,” he coaxes. “Beyonce.”

“What are you--” Yuri trails off as he finally hears the faint ‘We run the world!’ drifting from the other end of the room. “Holy shit.”

And he’s off. Victor watches his retreating back with amusement, grabs another glass of champagne, and follows.

“Your dancing sucks,” Yuri is saying to Yuuri. (Wow, Yuri and Yuuri, that might get confusing.)

Yuuri, hips swinging wildly side to side, tosses back his head and laughs. He executes a frankly lovely pirouette, then chaînés turns and lunges into an arabesque with his face inches from Yuri’s. “Wanna try me?”

“Fuck you.”

Unfazed, Yuuri drops the ballet posture and returns to just gyrating. “I call that giving up!”

A growl rumbles forth from Yuri’s throat. “No.”

“Okay, quitter.”

The growl progresses to a full roar. Victor counts down quietly in his head. Three, two… “Alright, you’re asking for it!” shrieks Yuri, and he throws himself in with Yuuri to the beat of Single Ladies.

What follows is the single greatest thing Victor has ever witnessed. He takes so many pictures.

“Never would have taken you for the dance-off type,” he snickers to Yuri when he’s finally released, short of breath and incredibly pissed.

“Fuck off,” says Yuri. Oh well. Victor hadn’t expected much.

“Next challenger!” Yuuri hollers, beaming and brandishing what Victor’s fairly certain is a brand new bottle of champagne. “Who will test the might of Katsuki!”

There are no volunteers.

“Alrighty then! Choosing victims!” His eyes rove, unfocused, across the faces of the crowd and eventually, after much debate, lock onto Victor.

...Huh.

“And the lucky winner is Victor Nikiforov!” Yuuri cheers. He takes a huge swig from the bottle, chortles unevenly, and discards it. “Dance with me!”

“But then I’ll miss the pictures,” Victor defers. This is not out of desire to not dance; he genuinely wants the pictures. These are precious memories here. How could he miss taking a single one?

His phone vanishes from his hands. “Give me that,” Yuri snaps. Victor opens his mouth to say that he can’t give it if Yuri has already taken it, but he finds himself shoved into the open circle by a strong kick to the backside. Little terror.

“Dance with me!” Yuuri cries again, and he seizes Victor by the hand.

That’s when it happens.

Yuuri doesn’t seem to notice, yanking Victor into turns without pause. Victor follows on instinct, mind racing, locked onto the burning tingle in his palm. As soon as he can do it inconspicuously he forces space between their hands and looks and, sure enough, there it is. His palm bears blue marks in the shape of Yuuri’s fingers, and Yuuri’s fingers are purple almost to the base.

Soulmates.

He takes a half second to process, stumbling slightly in a step series. A long, drunken noise of disapproval from Yuuri brings him back, and he makes a decision. Quickly reversing their energy, he leads Yuuri into a sharp spin and dips him. Yuuri lets his weight fall completely on Victor’s arms, raising both his hands in victory signs, whooping before shifting to stand again and resuming the lead.

They dance through to the end of the song, then continue through the next and the next. Yuuri, Victor learns quickly, is a joy to dance with. He leads clearly and follows well, and the joy he expresses through every motion is infectious. It almost feels choreographed, such is the ease with which they sync to each other’s movements, breaking apart and crashing back together in time with drops and swells in the music.

He laughs aloud when Yuuri lip syncs passionately to Dangerous Woman, and they meet again for a series of pivots that end with Victor in a dip staring upside down at Yuri. He waggles his fingers, winks, and then they are off again-- but not before witnessing the comical disgust on Yuri’s face.

They finally stop when My Heart Will Go On comes up on the playlist. The owner of the speaker turns red and quickly turns it off, fiddling with the device and cursing, but the moment is broken. In the brief silence Yuuri drapes himself over Victor and starts going on about his family’s hot springs. Victor doesn’t hear many of the words, distracted by the rather excessive motions still happening in Yuuri’s hips, but he snaps back to reality when Yuuri slurs, “If I win this dance off, you’ll become my coach, right? Be my coach, Victor!”

Stricken, he simply stares for several seconds. Then he lays a hand on top of Yuuri’s head-- the same hand that bears his mark.

“You’ve already won the dance off,” he says quietly.

Yuuri hoots in triumph and runs off to find more champagne. Chris gives Victor a look before walking off after Yuuri, which, really, Victor should probably stopped him from doing, because there proceed to be two nearly-naked men on a stripper pole in the middle of dozens of formally-dressed figure skating greats. He does get a lot of great photos out of it once he retrieves his phone from Yuri, though, so it was worth it. He hopes Yuuri agrees once he’s sober again.

At some ungodly hour, when most of the guests have left and Yuuri is snoozing in a mostly-nude heap next to Chris, Yuuri’s coach shows up again. He stops at the doorway and takes in the scene with an open mouth, then swoops in, apologizing frantically.

“It’s fine,” says Victor. “It was probably for the best.”

The coach - he introduced himself as Celestino - makes an incredulous noise. “For the best?” he sputters.

Victor holds out his hand, palm up. “Check his fingers,” he says. “They match.”

Celestino stares for several long moments, then deflates. “And if he hadn’t gotten drunk--”

“He’d never have touched me,” Victor confirms.

“This man is going to be the death of me, I swear. Troublesome child.” Celestino slings one of Yuuri’s arms over his shoulders. “How good do you think the chances are of getting him back to his room without being seen?” The banquet is held a hosting room of the hotel that most of the Grand Prix finalists and families have stayed at during their time in Sochi. Yuuri, it seems, is no exception.

“Pretty good. There won’t be many people out at this time. What floor?”

“Twelve.”

“You’ll be fine.” Victor hesitates. “If it’s possible… I’d like to see him again, before he goes. When he’s sober”

After a measuring look, Celestino caves. “We’ll be in the lobby at two tomorrow before leaving for the airport.”

They part ways. Victor deems that it’s high time he take his leave of the party, and he heads back to his room somehow feeling bone-tired and energized all at once. Flopping across the bed and tracing the outlines of the splash of blue across his palm, he wonders what Katsuki Yuuri is like sober. If he dances that beautifully without champagne or somehow is even better. If he’s always as reserved as he’d seemed at the party’s outset, or if that was just nerves, or embarrassment, or both.

He tries to sleep. It doesn’t work very well.

He is in the lobby by one thirty the next day, seating himself on one of the moderately comfortable benches and pulling out his phone. Ostensibly he is sifting through his comp photos to choose which ones to post to instagram, but mostly he just stares for a long time at the pictures Yuri took of his and Yuuri’s dances.

As the time drags itself closer to two, Victor grows gradually more tense. He speculates on how much Yuuri remembers of the party. Has he seen the splashes of color across his fingers yet? Or is he too hungover to notice? That would be awful. He starts tensing every time the elevator pings, then deflating when it’s not the person he wants. By the time his phone clock reads 2:00, he’s barely restraining his knee from bouncing impatiently.

2:01. He keeps trying to pass the time by flicking through his phone, but he keeps stumbling back to those pictures. He traces Yuuri’s laughing profile with his eyes and examines his own expression, wondering when he was last so exuberantly happy. The first time he won gold, he thinks. It feels like a long time ago.

2:02. The elevator dings and he nearly jumps from his seat. His heart doesn’t fully slow even after he realizes it’s not Yuuri.

2:03. He is literally just swiping back and forth to watch his open apps reshuffle themselves left to right over and over. Every three seconds or so he looks up, even when the elevator does not ding.

2:04. Nothing.

2:05. Should he try meditating? He has been told that meditation is good for passing time and calming nerves, but he’s never managed it very well when he’s actually anxious. Deep breath in, out… twelve seconds later he peeks with one eye at the still elevator doors.

2:06.

2:07.

2:08. Are they coming? Did Celestino tell him the wrong time? He looks down at the blue streaks on his palm and begins, quietly, to panic. He doesn’t know how to contact Yuuri, he doesn’t know if they’ll even be at the same comp again ever. Is there a way to track him down on social media? Does Yuuri even use social media? He seems too introverted for it. What if Victor can’t ever find him again? That’s an overreaction. But is it? Is it really? He should have asked for a phone number, or a room number, or something. What if they never find each--

_Ding!_

Yuuri looks like hell, which Victor belatedly realizes he should have anticipated, and is trailing behind Celestino with his mind seemingly a million miles away. Celestino stops at the desk to check out, and Yuuri stops with him. His eyes rove unseeingly over the lobby for several long seconds. Then, blearily, they settle on Victor.

It visibly takes him time to register exactly who he is looking at, and when the realization comes it does so slowly and with rising distress. Victor watches as the tension in his body ratchets up from passive to flustered, then spikes to panicked as Victor stands and approaches.

Celestino finishes checkout as he reaches the desk. “Ah, Nikiforov. Glad you made it.”

“It’s good to see you,” says Victor. He barely gives a glance to Celestino, who huffs out a quiet chuckle.

“I’ll just go stand over there now.” Celestino gestures toward a ficus by the hotel entrance and pats Yuuri on the shoulder. “Call me over if you need anything,” he says, leveling a vaguely threatening look at Victor before conspicuously wandering away.

Yuuri watches him go with a confused, “Huh?” only seeming to realize what has happened when he is halfway across the lobby and the two of them are left suddenly alone. His face begins to redden, and he opens his mouth as though to speak, but no words come out.

Victor realizes abruptly that he has no plan beyond this point. His only goal had been to find Yuuri again in the morning, but there was nothing beyond that. He searches for the right words, for the right place to begin, anything. There is nothing. So, for lack of a better option, he goes with what are probably the wrong words, but will at least get something happening. “How much do you remember about the banquet?”

Yuuri blinks at him, taken aback, then looks increasingly alarmed. “Uh. Not a lot.”

“Do you remember the dance offs?” The expression on his face is a clear no. Victor sighs. Nothing for it but bluntness, then. He holds out his hand for Yuuri’s inspection, blue smudges clearly visible. “This,” he says carefully, “happened when you pulled me onto the dance floor.”

Yuuri’s face goes blank as he processes. Then his eyes grow wide and he examines his own hand, stilling when he sees the purple across his fingers.

“I…” Yuuri is still staring, eyes flickering back and forth from Victor’s hand to his own. “Can I match them?”

Victor feels himself melt a little on the inside. “Of course.”

After a brief hesitation, Yuuri extends trembling fingers to haltingly fit them into Victor’s palm. They match. Victor turns his arm over to mimic the original position their hands had been in, when Yuuri had pulled him into a spin.

“I know you have to catch a flight now,” Victor says into the silence, “but could I have your phone number? So we can keep in touch.”

He’s growing accustomed to the processing lag of hungover Yuuri. “Yes,” says Yuuri after the requisite pause, and they exchange numbers, though not without a good deal of clumsy fumbling of phones and buttons.

Finished, phones returned, they take each other in for what feels like ages, simply standing and staring. Yuuri has to catch a flight, but it feels like they could stay here forever, preserve this moment for eternity.

“I think I have to go,” Yuuri says finally. Victor frowns, but agrees. Yuuri, after an awkward beat, turns to leave.

“Wait!”

He pivots, surprised. Victor, also surprised, needs a moment to recall why he stopped him.

“Selfie,” he says. “I want a picture with you that you’ll actually remember taking.”

“...Okay,” Yuuri says. Then, “Wait, there are pictures I don’t remember taking?”

“Smile,” says Victor hurriedly. They smile and snap the photo, and then they are back to the standing and staring. “I’ll text you,” says Victor. “Also, do you have an instagram I can tag?”

Yuuri looks to the side. “I have to go.”

“I’ll see you around,” says Victor, letting the instagram issue go. He has no idea if what he’s said is true - he and Yuuri may not skate at the same competition again for the rest of the season, for all he knows - but he hopes with all his heart that is.

“See you,” echoes Yuuri. He heads for the door, where he meets with Celestino. Just before they leave the building, he turns and waves. Victor waves back.

And then they are gone. Victor lowers his hand and examines the marks yet again, visible evidence of what almost feels like a dream. He pulls out his phone, sets their selfie as his home screen. (Makkachin keeps the lock screen, though.) Then he opens up instagram.

_v_nikiforov Met great people in Sochi! #YuuriKatsuki #grandprix_

He posts it. Then, with a smile, he heads back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, it may be up to a week before next update. I have a lot on my plate irl, and speech season is starting! Any MN speech children, I am headed to Duluth/Denfeld, hmu.


	4. Matching Symbols

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT INFORMATION, MUST READ: 'Compusory figures' is skating with the intent to draw specific patterns on the ice. 'Patch skating' is to practice these figures using shiny 'patches' of ice. Both have fallen out of practice.
> 
> That's the basics. For more on all the fun stuff I learned for this fic, check here: https://chaifighter.tumblr.com/post/157158173102/5-times-chapter-4-supplement-school-figures-and
> 
> Good lordy this took a long time. Sorry guys. First draft sucked, I had to totally rewrite, and that rewrite took forever and a half. But it's here now, yay!

At the moment of his eighteenth birthday, Katsuki Yuuri feels something shift. He jolts awake-- it is still dark outside. Then he dashes for the bathroom and searches himself in the mirror. When he finds it, he stills.

It's a pretty little thing, his soulmark, small and a delicate blue, fragile lines. It would be much prettier if it were useful.

Yuuko finds him on the rink, skating useless circles. She frowns at him as she slings her bag off her shoulder. “Yuuri, how long have you been here?”

“Don’t know.” A turned corner brings her into his field of vision, and he skates faster to pass her and put her at his back again.

“Come off the ice,” she says.

“I'd like to die here, actually. Come back in a few days.”

She marches out onto the ice and hauls him bodily off of it, shoving him down on a bench. Examining him, she lets out an exasperated huff.

“Happy birthday, Yuuri. You are now a legal adult.”

“Thanks,” he mutters. She flicks him on the ear.

“Come on, spill. What's so bad about it? Is it someone you know?”

“No.”

“Then what's so terrible? Show me.”

His face flushes red. “I-I can't do that.”

“And why not? Is it a bad symbol?”

“No. It's- It's nice.”

“Show me, then!”

“I can't show you!”

“Why not?”

“B-Because of where it is!”

Yuuri’s soulmate mark sits jauntily on his right buttock, and though Yuuko keeps a straight face when he tells her, he can see that she wants to laugh. He tries to muster up a glare, but he's fairly certain he just looks sort of pathetic and miserable.

Who even gets a soulmark on the butt? Honestly, what the heck. Statistically speaking, the arms and hands are the most common locations for a mark, followed by legs, necks, and stomachs. It's like nature knows, somehow, that most other places are off limits. Naturally, Yuuri is one of the few cases where nature forgot.

“Yuuri, that's not the end of the world. At least you have a mark.”

“But what's the use of having it if no one is going to see it? It's not like I can just,” he makes a vague gesture, “every time they're curious.”

“You could ask them to do the pants dropping,” says Yuuko. Yuuri makes an unintelligible noise of pain. She pats him on the shoulder. “Don't worry. These things have a way of working out. You'll find them, promise.”

“Right,” Yuuri murmurs, unconvinced. And life goes on.

He’s accepted to college in Detroit and flies out with optimism. His new coach and reason for going overseas, Celestino, has a great track record and seems to think that Yuuri has a lot of potential in skating. It’s also just exciting to see the world. He lands in America late and crashes almost immediately to sleep off the jet lag, then takes a bus to the campus the following morning.

His roommate is an American student, friendly enough, but who seems vaguely baffled by Yuuri’s accent. They resolve space negotiations quickly and painlessly, and Yuuri settles in with a general sense of unreality and a strong, positive feeling that this is the beginning of something new and wonderful.

This feeling lasts approximately two weeks.

America is loud. Yuuri has seen his fair share of the world’s cities for competitions, but he's lived in quiet little Hasetsu for his entire life, and after two weeks the incessant noise of Detroit (the city and its people both) begins to frazzle him.

“You okay?” asks his roommate cautiously one day. Yuuri has just come back from another day of classes, and English, and _Americans_. Rather than reply in coherent (English, god) sentences, Yuuri just screams for a second time into his pillow.

“...Alright then,” says his roommate. He returns to his textbook.

At least the rink is incredible. It's beautiful ice, and populated by skaters who share Yuuri’s love of the sport. The only downside is that they don't offer patch sessions. Yuuri had known that the Hasetsu rink was one of only few rinks that had the option anymore, but it is still unexpectedly jarring to see it for himself.

Celestino is overjoyed to meet Yuuri, and they set to work immediately. Yuuri had expected a strict, grueling training regimen, and while he gets that, Celestino seems to operate based more on expectation-encouragement-fulfillment-reward than the simple strategy of demand Yuuri has observed in other skaters’ coaches. It seems to work well enough - he does see improvement in himself - so he settles in for the long haul.

He's coming off the ice one day - he's been working on his own time to commit his new season program to memory - when he is accosted by a boy, short, brown, and clearly excited. He looks about sixteen, and as Yuuri watches he pulls out a phone to brandish it like a weapon.

“Hey! Katsuki Yuuri, right?” Yuuri nod, baffled. The boy grins, then gets up close to him and holds the camera for a selfie. “Smile!” The shutter-snap noise goes off. “Awesome! Thanks so much, it's great to meet you! I'm Phichit Chulanont, skater, Thailand. You're Ciao Ciao’s newest student, right? Gotta say, I like your footwork.”

“Th-thanks,” says Yuuri when he is certain the pause is for a response and not for breath. “It's good to meet you too.” He bows on reflex before belatedly remembering that they don't do that in America. Fortunately, Phichit doesn't seem to mind.

“You’re new to America, right?”

“Yes.”

“I have practice now, but do you want to go somewhere later? I’ve been here a while, I could show you around. We skaters have to stick together.”

Yuuri, though surprised by the suddenness of the offer, weighs the idea against going back to the dorm to scream again and finds himself much in favor. “Sure,” he says hesitantly. “That might be fun.”

“Cool!” Phichit beams. They exchange phone numbers and Phichit hurries out onto the ice, snapping off a salute as he goes. Yuuri is left feeling winded and vaguely displaced, shell-shocked by the speed of the encounter, wondering if he should stay here or wander around for a few hours.

Despite the abruptness of their meeting he and Phichit soon become fast friends, talking at length about their respective homelands and the culture shock of America. They also discuss skating. So much skating. Yuuri learns that Phichit is in America living with distant relatives-by-marriage in order to have access to Celestino, and while he is grateful for the opportunity it provides, he had never met or even heard of these relatives before coming to stay with them.

“They’re completely white,” he mourns. “Not a bit of Thai in either of them. That’s now not related to me they are. It’s basically living with strangers.”

Yuuri, for his part, can finally express his frustration with language. “I know my English is good, but my roommate always seems to need five extra seconds to understand what I’m saying. And classes-- I don’t think even native speakers understand what’s being said in there.”

“And idioms!” agrees Phichit. “What does ‘shoot the breeze’ mean?”

“And ‘take a raincheck.’”

“‘Plead the fifth.’”

“I think that one has something to do with the government.”

Months drift by. Yuuri grows gradually acclimated to the bustle of city life, and Phichit drags him slowly but surely into social media. Together they claw their way to mastery of their programs and prepare for comp season.

Sitting in some hipster little coffee shop Phichit found on an instagram scroll marathon, Yuuri becomes aware that Phichit is studying him carefully. “What is it?” he asks self-consciously, reaching for a napkin.

“I still don’t know what your mark is.”

Yuuri chokes. Phichit makes sure he isn’t about to die, then continues when he is breathing normally again, eyes narrowed. “Usually I can figure it out within a few weeks, but I still haven’t seen a hint of yours, and we share a locker room sometimes.”

Yuuri can just feel his face heating up. “I-It’s kind of in a bad place.”

“I figured.” A smirk flashes across Phichit face, and he leans back to study Yuuri for a moment. Yuuri feels uncomfortably like a specimen under a microscope.

“You… You don’t have your mark yet, right?” he asks desperately. Phichit shakes his head. “Good luck, I guess. I-I hope yours is in a better spot than mine.”

Laughing, Phichit agrees. “Wherever that may be,” he snickers, and he lets the subject drop. The subject, miraculously, stays dropped for almost three whole years.

Then Yuuri turns 21.

Seven months before Yuuri’s 21st birthday, Phichit wakes up to a tiny mark in the crease of his elbow. He stares at it, shrieks a little, waking Yuuri who had fallen asleep on his couch during the fourth loop of The King and The Skater, and then bemoans the American drinking age. That’s where it starts.

Four months before Yuuri’s 21st birthday, he and Phichit get an apartment together, because Phichit is (somehow) still uncomfortable with his not-quite-relatives and finally old enough to do something about it. It’s close to the college and the rink, and with enough thrift and pinching they manage to live it cheaper than fees for board in the dorms. That’s what enables it.

Two days before Yuuri’s 21st birthday, Phichit makes the suggestion.

“You’re turning 21. Let’s get you drunk.”

And here’s the thing. Yuuri knows it’s a bad idea. He knows his father, and he knows that if there’s even a chance he’ll be that brand of drunk he should not go out to a bar, ever. But he also knows this-- there is alcohol everywhere, and some time or another, he will try it. Better, he reasons, to embarrass himself in a bar where everyone is already ashamed and embarrassed to even be there than to test his liver for the first time at a formal event or something.

“Maybe,” he says. He will regret this decision.

The morning after Yuuri’s 21st birthday, he wakes up feeling like he’s been run through a laminator. He groans, starts to sink back to sleep, and is rudely awakened by the familiar sound of Phichit snickering.

“Hey Yuuri,” he asks gleefully, “want to learn to pole dance properly for next time?”

…What?

According to Phichit’s photo library, Yuuri had the time of his life at the bar. He is apparently a handsy, happy drunk who enjoys loud music and energetic dancing. Also, he can now say he has been a part of a remarkably long grind line, and that he has made serious attempts to pole dance. Phichit tells him that the actual pole dancers in the bar had made comments about Yuuri’s potential.

“This is terrible,” Yuuri moans into his pillow.

“It gets better,” says Phichit.

As the photos scroll on, the number of clothes on Yuuri’s body gradually decrease, right down to his underwear. There aren’t many pictures after that point - Phichit had made the decision that this was too far and dragged Yuuri home - but it’s enough.

“Process of elimination,” Phichit says, lifting one finger in a scholarly manner, “Yuuri has no mark on any of his visible body while wearing only underwear. Therefore, Yuuri’s mark must be on the one place of his body still covered-” he cracks, laughing before he finishes “-the booty.”

Yuuri muffles a noise of suffering in his pillow.

“Thank you my friend.” Phichit sweeps, still giggling, into a bow. “It was truly a night to remember.”

When Yuuri asks, Phichit deletes the photos. He seems disappointed but unsurprised, and gives only a token protest. They rarely discuss soulmarks after that, though whenever they do Phichit just has to leer a little to get a reaction. Instead they make the most out of this skating season, and then get ready for the next.

Next season,Yuuri qualifies for the GPF. It... doesn’t go well.

Limping back to Hasetsu after a dumpster fire year comp year, Yuuri is ready to just relax for a month or two. He would like to luxuriate in seeing his family again, and just soak in the baths for about a week. He’s been needing a break for ages, a retreat from the city he has grown accustomed to. And for a while Hasetsu is just that. He cleans and wanders around a while, runs to burn off some sadness fat. Stands outdoors and just breathes the clean air.

Then the triplets post that video.

It’s not the performance he has a problem with. It’s a good rendition, clean, and the care he’s taken with the routine is obvious. Rather, it’s the emotion involved. Stay Close to Me-- Yuuri had tapped into his old insecurities for that performance, dredging up all his worries about never finding his soulmate simply due to accident of nature. Seeing the viewcount is like seeing a tally of people who have had access his heart, to quantify it and pick it apart. Upset, he turns off his phone and lies awake uselessly until his body takes the decision of sleep out of his hands.

He wakes up the next morning at the sound of his mother’s knocking. It snowed overnight; better clear the driveway to keep his mind off of how many more views the video probably managed overnight. He shrugs into his jacket, grabs a shovel, opens the door, and sees the ghost of his dog.

Vicchan’s spirit turns out to be large and tangible enough to knock him over. Not really Vicchan, then. Actually, the more he looks (when he can look between slobbery dog-kisses), the more familiar this dog seems-- no. No way. Yuuri makes a series of connections that add up to a single conclusion. But it’s impossible. Definitely impossible. Right? Right.

A handsome foreigner, his father says.

Oh.

Oh god.

Yuuri scrambles to his feet, falling over at least twice in the process, and shoots off at a dead sprint. He slips a few times on his way through the bathhouse and startles patrons into dropping things, slipping themselves, and in one memorable case, swallowing soap. He pays little attention, however, and instead sets his sights on the door to the patio.

He bursts out into the chill of the day, nearly tumbling head over heels as he frantically drags to a stop. Fighting to catch his breath, he forces his eyes into focus. And there it is. The impossible.

Victor Nikiforov is in his family’s hot springs.

Victor Nikiforov.

Victor Nikiforov, whose face is plastered over his bedroom like wallpaper. Victor Nikiforov, five time champion, darling of the skating world, idol, legend.

 _Victor Nikiforov_ , naked in a spring in Yuuri’s backyard.

In some distant corner of his mind, untouched by the blankness affecting the rest of his higher functions, there is a vague wish that he had a camera with him. Phichit would love to see this.

“Yuuri,” says Victor, long and languid like he’s caressing the name, and oh god is Yuuri dreaming? He’s probably dreaming. This is actually a lot like a fantasy he had one time when he was nineteen. It’s too similar to be real. Only, here it is, right in front of him, Victor Nikiforov rising from the water like a vision and gracefully extending a hand, face and chest flushed gently from the heat of the pool, water running in rivulets down smooth flanks to slip across a gorgeously shaped butt--

Holy shit.

Yuuri blinks. Then he blinks again, and again, and rubs his eyes for good measure, and takes off his glasses and squints in case it’s something on the lenses. It’s still there when he manages to focus again.

His mark.

That’s his mark.

He is staring at Victor Nikiforov’s beautifully toned right butt cheek, and he is seeing his soulmark, spindly blue, curl cheerfully across the skin.

Victor, by this point, seems to be realizing that Yuuri has not heard a word he said, and by his changing expression it appears to be dawning on him what Yuuri is looking at.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” he asks. His tone is pleasant, but there’s a slight undercurrent of something Yuuri can’t identify. Expectation? Prompt? Maybe he’s upset. Yuuri knows that he himself would take issue if a stranger ogled his butt. Heat rushes to his face and he yanks his gaze northward, a change that lasts only a few seconds before his eyes wander down again.

“P-Pretty,” he agrees. It comes out as a strangled shout. He flushes even redder and adds, before he can stop himself, “Hard to skate, though.”

Almost simultaneously they both inhale. Victor studies him narrowly, something tugging at the corners of his eyes. “You skate school figures?”

Yuuri attempts to reply, but his mouth won’t even begin to form the words properly, too many ideas struggling to be spoken at once. “I used-- when I start… M-My first teacher, at my first rink, we. We did patch.”

“Enough to recognize an abstract design as patch skating?”

“Y-Yes.”

“And to know it would be difficult to skate?”

“No,” Yuuri admits, heart roaring in his ears. “Th-that’s because I’ve tried.”

Silence.

“I thought it would be you,” says Victor Nikiforov. A brilliant smile spreads across his face, like the sun sliding out from behind a cloud. “I was nearly sure at the banquet, but I didn’t want to ask when you were drunk. This is incredible!” He wades across the pool and clambers out on the other side, still buck naked. Yuuri, out of self preservation instinct if nothing else, shoves a towel at him to wrap around his waist.

“The banquet?” Yuuri asks when Victor is at least somewhat covered. “Drunk?” He doesn’t remember anything like that. For a moment he thinks it wouldn’t be possible for him to forget meeting Victor Nikiforov at that party-- but then he remembers his 21st birthday and Phichit’s photo reel. It’s definitely possible. It’s almost likely.

“It was magical, Yuuri!” Victor enthuses, oblivious to Yuuri’s realizations. “We danced the night away, just Cinderella and her prince, falling in love all the while… Well, I was falling in love. You were falling down drunk, I guess.” He laughs, a little abashed. Yuuri, meanwhile, cannot decide whether to feel cheated that he doesn’t remember his whirlwind romance with his skating idol or glad that he doesn’t recall the embarrassing things he surely managed to get up to.

“Hey,” he begins when a brief spell of wondering quiet stretches too long. “Are you not going to ask me to show you my mark? Usually that’s how this works.”

Victor waves a dismissive hand. “I’ve already seen most of your body, there wasn’t much anywhere else for it to be. That’s part of how I knew it was you. When you recognized it as figures, that’s plenty of proof for me.”

Foreboding washes over Yuuri. That situation sounds awfully familiar. “Y-You’ve seen most of my body already?”

“Ah, right,” says Victor after a moment. “You don't remember… You know, I’ve been meaning to ask. Where did you learn to pole dance?” Oh god. Yuuri buries his burning face in his hands. When Victor questions him further, he gives mumbled answers so garbled they’re unintelligible. Victor laughs it off lightly.

“Fine, fine, remain a mystery. I’ve waited a year for a chance to solve you, I can give it a bit more time.”

A year. He’s waited a year. Yuuri spreads his fingers to stare at the ground. Yuuri has waited five years since he got his mark. Yuuri has waited a decade since he was twelve years old and watching Victor on the television, wreathed by blue roses, beautiful and out of reach as a star.

“I-I thought I was never going to find my soulmate,” he says, shakily lowering his hands and forcing his back straight. He meets Victor’s gaze. “I thought the spot of the mark would make it impossible.” Victor beams.

“Well, today’s your lucky day then.”

It is. Oh, it is. Yuuri returns a wobbly, amazed smile. Then he remembers abruptly where they are. It’s cold and snowy and Victor has been out of the bath for several minutes now, and one towel between him and naked, wow, he’s probably freezing, and hey soulmates, also they should really go inside, and what about--

“L-Let’s go in!” It comes out like a yell. Victor doesn’t miss a beat.

“Okay,” he sings. He links their arms together. “Let’s meet the family! You know, they already think I’m handsome. They’ll love this.”

Yuuri laughs despite himself. “My dad actually called you ‘a handsome foreigner,’” he says.

“Oh really? I must admit I do make an impression…”

They vanish into the warm glow of the house, and the patio door slides softly shut behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge credit as always to beta, who now can be found on AO3 as FaceWaffles. I honestly cannot overemphasize how much better they make my writing.
> 
> I got a tumblr! Follow chaifighter for updates on the status of my updates and advance notice on new projects. Thank you all for your support!


	5. Rings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where have I been, you ask? I have been off winning speech meets. *sunglasses emoji* But no really this took forever, and until speech season ends that's probably what everything's going to be. Sorry folks. 
> 
> Why the name change? Remember kiddos, always Google your usernames before using them. 
> 
> Thanks as always to my spectacular beta. Find them on ao3 as FaceWaffles. 
> 
> This chapter is pretty short and a different style, hope you enjoy :)

As the world at large sees it, there are two approaches to the Match problem: kiss every stranger you meet or avoid it at all costs. Victor’s parents attempt the second. They meet, date, and marry, secure enough in love that they need no proof. Then, when his mother announces her pregnancy, his father is overcome and kisses her full on the lips. Victor studies their blank ring fingers often when he thinks they do not realize he is looking. He is intrigued by the idea of soulmates, and he longs for his desperately. He does not make the connection between Marks and his parents’ occasional stiff silences for a long time.

Yuuri’s parents, in contrast, meet through the first approach. It is a New Year’s party, and the clock strikes the bright new day, and everyone reaches out for a stranger to kiss. It just so happens that these two are a Match. Yuuri’s father indulges his son in examining the marks often. He loves to tell that story of how they met. He says that fate led him to his beloved wife-- that fate would never have let that night go any other way.

There are two approaches to the Match problem: kiss every stranger you meet or avoid it at all costs. By the time Victor Nikiforov is nineteen he seems to have chosen the former. Slowly the tabloids grow saturated with puff pieces on his latest conquests, short, romantic, and entirely innocent, a single date followed by a single kiss and never pursued again. This pattern will repeat for years. He will find companions in the evenings of rest days, until he’s left behind tales of magical nights in every major city, a sprinkling of soft lights sifted across the surface of the globe.

Yuuri Katsuki, meanwhile, cradles a magazine in his hands. He is fifteen years old. His face is still soft and round, and he knows near nothing of trials of the heart. Studying the contours of his idol’s smile, rendered crisp on glossy paper, he contemplates, and chooses the latter option.

Years later, beyond sheafs of candids and score sheets, past blisters and tears and bruises and the burning course of adrenaline through ready veins-- years later, these two people kneel in intimate space, surrounded by shipping boxes of all things, and hover on the edge of something. They are close, just inches from possibility. Their hands are touching, warm and alive, and the air between them hums. The scene is still, like a movie on pause.

“Tell me everything about yourself,” Victor says. He tilts Yuuri’s chin up with slender fingers.

Yuuri is thinking about Victor’s track record. He thinks he knows where this is going. His heart is roaring with the force of a decade’s wishful thinking.

Victor is thinking about--

Press play.

Something changes in Victor’s eyes. Yuuri doesn’t know what it is, but the very fact of a shift drops him unceremoniously back into reality. He leaps away, red-faced. Life continues, their orbits untouched, asymptotes spared that potential disaster of meeting.

(Victor is thinking about _maybe_ and _what if._ He is thinking, _for once this is a risk._ He is thinking, _this man lights my heart on fire when he skates, when he dances, when his eyes lock with mine._ He is wondering, _can I lose this? Can I take that chance?_

He can’t. So he doesn’t.)

Competition, improvement, the slow climb hand over hand toward the gleaming spire of aspirations. It’s a story you know, but there’s something lingering below the glistening surface, depths of live water beneath winter ice. There is a wondering every time they draw close, a question carried in the vacillating distance between two people. It’s a possibility, nothing more unless they let it be. It’s a possibility, and it begins to fray them both.

Pause.

It’s a parking lot. A cavernous space, echoing and vast, a cathedral hall without the majesty or shine. Victor cradles in his palm a hollow glass heart, and beneath sharp words, it shatters.

Victor… doesn’t know how to deal with crying people. He’s seen plenty of them - skating is high-stress, and skaters are high-strung - but he’s always made efforts to remove himself from these situations. This time, for the first time in years, leaving is not an option. He searches for something to say-- something to do-- and comes up empty.

Fortunately, Yuuri finds it for him.

“Just have more faith than I do,” he sobs. And, “Just stand by me.”

 _Well_ , Victor thinks. _That’s as good advice as any._ So he gathers him up, this astonishing man, and holds him until the shaking stops, presses his lips just at the left of his hairline. And, suddenly, it all seems so very simple.

Fast forward.

Exhausted, red-eyed, weary, Yuuri nonetheless takes to the ice more relaxed than he has in ages. He has cried out his anxiety and all that is left is a smooth sort of resignation that what will be, will be. Victor’s eyes are on the back of his neck, and when Yuuri loops around he catches a glimpse of him with one hand still on his own head where Yuuri had poked him. He smiles, just a little.

Then the music starts.

This time is different from all those before. He feels the music through his body: soft ripples of ascensions, gentle strikes of clarity, a few clean notes above the shimmering backdrop of here and now. He sees things better from this perspective. With the piano guiding his body, he is finally free to think, lucid for the first time in days-- no, that’s not right. Rather, the thoughts rise softly from within him, truths that he can finally see and accept. Victor, and himself, and this day; he can finally settle with the way things are.

Here, jump--

Land.

It is less about the competition and more about them, the concept and the people both. He thinks about Victor’s reactions instead of the crowd or the judges. He feels, in his chest, something building.

Jump--

Land.

_The only way to get a reaction is to try._

Step sequence, strength. It’s rising within him. Love, this is why he chose it, this is what he feels when he decides. The music builds to meet him and carry him to the crest of the wave.

Here it comes.

_Can you hear it, Victor? I’ve realized something._

Jump, fly--

_So long as you see it, even a fall--_

Impact.

\-- _is still a landing!_

Slowly, the piano subsides, and he spins to a rest. As the world comes back into focus he realizes distantly that his breath is ragged, and that the roaring in his ears is not only his heartbeat, but the shrieking of the crowd. But Yuuri has only one person who he wants to hear.

Pause.

Yuuri is thinking about Victor. _Do you see?_ he wants to yell as he skates over, joy spreading wide over his face. _I get it now. I finally understand._

Victor has skidded to a stop at the gate to the ice, leaning on the barrier so his momentum doesn’t drag him over. He has heard Yuuri shout for him. Victor is thinking about--

Victor is thinking about _maybe_ and _what if._ He is thinking, _what a risk-- but Yuuri is worth every risk._ He is replaying it in his head over and over, _quad flip, four rotations, he fell but he still made it._ He is deciding, _even a fall is still a landing._

So he jumps.

Press play.

When they come to a stop, Victor pulls back and stares into Yuuri’s eyes. Yuuri looks back, disbelief on his face melting slowly into-- something else, a muddle of emotions neither of them can make sense of. Then, as one, they remember, and they turn their heads to look.

Gold tattoos gleam on their fingers.

Yuuri starts crying again (though happily this time), so completely wrung-out that he is overwhelmed. Victor grabs him by the cheeks and kisses him again, and again, and then kisses away the tears before dropping one last one on the ring mark on his finger. They stand arm in arm, face the screaming crowds and the press already clamoring for the first statements, and somehow, miraculously find their way to the kiss and cry.

“What took so long?” Yuuri asks as they wait for his score, tipping his head onto Victor’s shoulder to close his eyes for a bit. “I know you’ve wanted to try, and you’re definitely not shy about testing early.”

Victor shifts a little. Yuuri blinks his eyes open and sits up to pay closer attention to his face. Victor actually looks… embarrassed?

“I was…” He begins, then stops. “I wasn’t sure…”

There is a silence, with plenty of time to fill in the blanks.

“You were nervous?” Yuuri exclaims when he figures it out. “About what?”

Victor looks sideways. “About scaring you off.”

“Victor, you’ve been my idol since I was twelve.”

“Exactly! Everything I did in the beginning seemed to scare you, I thought if I tried to kiss you it would screw it up.”

Frustrating though it may be, Yuuri does see his point. He tries to imagine his own reaction if Victor had gone for a kiss, say, two months ago, and he thinks it would be roughly fifty-fifty whether he would have allowed it or run away.

“You’re right,” he concedes. He lets his head fall back onto Victor’s shoulder and grips his hand a little tighter. “At least we managed it now.”

Victor squeezes his hand back. “That we did.”

In just a few moments, Yuuri’s score will come out and they will know whether he made the podium. In just a little longer, they will have to give statements to multitude of reporters no doubt salivating to get their story. And not long after all of that, they will be on their way to get ready for Rostelecom, bracing for another exhausting hurdle.

For now, though, they sit on a chilly bench hand in hand, soulmarks glittering on their fingers, the sides of their bodies pressed warmly together like the most natural thing in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving for Europe soon, so next update won't be for at least two weeks. Thank you all for your support :D


	6. First Words (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the pain train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter number has now been raised to 7! This chapter got really, really long, so I have split it into two parts to maintain at least a semblance of consistency. (This part alone is still almost double any other chapter, but hey, I tried.)
> 
> I had to wrestle with paragraph spacing this time around, so if there are any weird gaps or squishes, please let me know.

“A commemorative photo? Sure!”

Yuuri stops. Everything in him just… goes still. Victor Nikiforov’s smile falters, and he opens his mouth to say something else.

Yuuri turns and walks away.

He’s already cried today, and he’d thought that he’d exhausted himself to where he couldn’t anymore. But when he makes it out of the building, when he’s in the cab and driving away, he thinks about the words that curve around his right ankle. He remembers years of useless wishing, useless wanting, posters on his bedroom walls. He relives the disaster of this competition, every wobble and fall, knowing that Victor Nikiforov, his soulmate, saw every moment of it.

He’s not done crying.

\---

“And the lucky winner is Victor Nikiforov! Dance with me!”

Victor inhales sharply and stares speechless into Yuuri Katsuki’s glittering, drunken eyes. After a long pause he says dumbly, “But then I’ll miss the pictures.” And then he waits, expecting recognition, any reaction.

Yuuri just laughs and pulls him onto the floor.

Yuri Plisetsky grabs Victor’s phone from his hand as they go, and when Victor scrolls through the pictures later, he will be able to see his own expression morph between pictures from confused to upset to a bittersweet sort of joy. For now, though, he has to pass through those emotions with all the tangibility of presence, as he comes to terms with the fact that while Yuuri Katsuki’s first words to him are scrawled forever on his hip, there is no answering set on Yuuri’s own skin.

It’s awful.

Yuuri is a joy to dance with, is the thing. And his smile is infectious, and his eyes are gorgeous in this lighting, and they move together like they were made just for this, just to dance together to this music. Victor is halfway in love by the end of the song, and with each consecutive number he feels himself slide deeper and deeper.

Mistaken connections are far from unheard of. But so are one-ways, and by the end of the dance-off, when Yuuri is plastered to his front asking Victor to be his coach, Victor is gone on this man, and he knows he didn’t make any mistake. Helplessly, he stares down into Yuuri’s wide eyes, wondering what he can possibly do now.

“You’ve already won the dance-off,” he says quietly. Yuuri, oblivious, cheers and runs off, and Victor, still shell shocked, watches him go.

“Victor?”

It’s Chris, looking concerned. Victor wants to brush him off and tell him he’s fine, but honestly, he is so far from fine right now. Chris reads as much off his expression and takes him aside to a back hallway, where they proceed to get drunk. Chris doesn’t ask and Victor doesn’t tell, mostly because Chris has already figured it out, the love part if not the words. This is just aftermath.

“What do I do?” Victor moans, slinging an arm over his face. Ostensibly it’s just him being dramatic, but really it’s to try and hide how close he is to breaking down. Chris probably sees through it, though. Fuck Chris. A bottle dangles loosely from Victor’s other hand. He peeks under the arm hiding his eyes, holds the bottle up to the light, swishes the champagne around a bit, and then chugs straight from the damn thing.

“Carry on,” says Chris. Victor almost snarks back something about useful advice, but Chris isn’t exactly a brilliant philosophical mind, and besides, Victor by this point has drunk himself near the point of numbness. Probably best to let it go.

Seriously though, fuck Chris. Maybe literally? That could be fun. Victor drinks again and flexes his free fingers, remembering the weight of Yuuri Katsuki’s hand. He lets the idea go immediately, and half an hour and a lot of alcohol later he and Chris haul their sorry selves up and rejoin the party.

(Eventually there is a stripper pole, but Victor only knows that through his pictures. He wishes he remembered better. Almost-naked Yuuri is something he would give a lot to see.)

\---

“V-Victor? What are you doing here?”

It’s not until the words are already out that Yuuri realizes that they’re his first real words to Victor. He colors brightly. They’re boring words, and a little bit rude. What must Victor think of him, having only that reference on him for twenty seven years?

“Yuuri,” drawls Victor, rising, and Yuuri immediately knows that something is wrong here. The notion is only strengthened when Victor continues with hardly a falter, saying something about-- coaching? The Grand Prix? Yuuri only hears every other word.

This is not the reaction of someone who just heard their words. This is not right at all.

Blearily Yuuri notices that from this angle he can see the dark rectangle of a soulmark sticker patch on Victor’s right hip. That must be where his mark is. Something shutters in Victor’s expression when he catches him looking, and Yuuri gets the feeling that he has made some grievous misstep.

He winks at Yuuri like nothing is wrong and says something else. This time, Yuuri doesn’t hear it at all. It’s finally sunk in.

His year of waiting was for nothing. Victor doesn’t have his words.

“C-come inside,” Yuuri chokes out. “It’s--” He doesn’t know where he was going with this sentence. “It’s cold out,” he finishes. And then, without turning back to see Victor’s face, he hurries inside.

He’d considered going to find Victor last year and dismissed the idea, still too embarrassed by his failure at the Grand Prix Final. Each successive loss over the rest of the season made him more resistant to confronting such a decorated skater, and eventually he just chickened out. Distantly, dumbly, he is glad. At least this way Victor has come to him, unknowing, and Yuuri hasn’t made a fool of himself with wishing.

He runs into Mari in one of the transition hallways between the baths and the rest of the lodge. Seeing his face, she startles. “Yuuri? What’s wrong?”

Is he crying? He brushes a hand over his eye. He’s crying.

“Take care of him,” he says, and all but runs past her. Faintly, her voice sounds back to him as she intercepts Victor, who was following a ways behind, and presumably starts to lead him to the commons to-- feed him, clothe him, something, Yuuri doesn’t care, Yuuri just--

He ends up in the kitchen, unsure of why or how he has come to be there. His brain is spinning so fast it is blank. He keeps having to wipe his tears with the backs of his hands, and now the backs of his hands are getting so damp that he’s just sort of spreading water across his cheeks. He hasn’t started the sobbing part yet. It’s coming, he feels it rising, but for now it’s all just tears.

On reflex he moves to hunt through the pantry, but his stomach turns over at the thought of food. He must be really out of it, then. He always eats when he’s upset. At a loss, with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, he sets himself down right where he is and just huddles against the base of the counter, drawer handles digging into his back. His throat closes up.

Hiroko finds him minutes later still curled up in that spot, sobbing his eyes out but trying to keep the volume down. She gathers him up and shushes him gently and calls out for Toshiya to come make the food, she forgot something urgent she needed to do.

“Mari told me something happened,” she says. “She’s trying to do what you asked, but she’s not sure whether ‘take care of him’ meant to be as a host or a protective sibling.”

Yuuri tries to say that Victor didn’t do anything to warrant a protective sibling, but then he realizes that the fact that Victor did nothing - no reaction, not a flicker - is exactly the problem, and  everything comes out as a mess of bad noises. Fortunately, this is his mother. She knows what he means.

In fits and starts he tells her what happened. At one point his dad pokes his head into the hall to ask, but she shoos him away and promises to talk later. Gradually, with her prompting, Yuuri manages to pull himself together. Victor Nikiforov is here to coach him-- fine. He’s here and he’s waiting, and Yuuri has run off pretty much the second he saw him. Were it any other person, Yuuri would be out there right now introducing himself and his family and katsudon. So that’s what he needs to do now. He just needs to get himself under control.

…Getting himself under control is freaking hard.

When the crying winds down he splashes his face with cold water, but it doesn’t make the redness or the swelling vanish completely. His nose is running, his eyes are glassy, and he feels like he might start crying again if he sees Victor. Hiroko assures him that if he needs to be alone he should go and be alone, whatever Victor will think. Yuuri almost takes her up on it, but it feels to much like running away. Instead he takes a deep, uneven breath and slips out into the main room.

Victor is sprawled over the floor asleep, cuddling his dog and drooling a little. Yuuri, after briefly catching at the doorway, treads softly and sits beside him. His features are just as fine up close as they are in his pictures, and Yuuri drinks them in even as his vision blurs again, tracing each line carefully to commit it to memory. Before he realizes what he is doing, his hand is halfway to Victor’s forehead to touch his hair. He catches himself and retracts the hand-- but not before Makkachin senses it and wakes up. She doesn’t move, just looks up at him with big dark doggy eyes until he scratches her behind the ears and she gives a happy little huff through her nose.

He pets her for a while, feeling himself grow calmer with every moment. He used to sit for hours with Vicchan a lot like this, and Vicchan had the same calming effect-- god damn it, now he’s going to cry about his dead dog on top of everything else. He buries his fingers deeper in Makkachin’s fur and breathes deeply. He’s so tired. He’s got the bone deep exhaustion that only happens after crying, and the emotional toll of his soulmate and his skating and his freaking dead dog, and oops, there he goes, he’s going to start crying ag--

Victor is awake.

His eyes are half-lidded and curious, wandering slowly from Makkachin’s head, up Yuuri’s arm, and finally landing on his face. A strange expression flutters across his features, then settles into concern. “Are you alright?”

Yuuri flies back as though burned, tumbling as he scrambles away and crunching his neck in what is almost a backwards somersault. Righting himself, he flails his hands. “F-fine, sorry, I-- you-- she--”

“It’s fine,” Victor says, sitting up and yawning. His bath robe slips off one shoulder. Yuuri averts his eyes. “I was just napping.”

“Of course,” Yuuri says.

“Do you have any food?” Victor asks.

“Y-Yes. I’ll just go--”

“Stay,” says Victor. They both start slightly, surprised. “Please,” he adds belatedly.

“O-Okay,” Yuuri says. He calls for his mother, Victor conveys the request for food, and she leaves with one last concerned smile over her shoulder. And then Yuuri and Victor sit there in stilted silence, because what do you say now in a situation like this?

“Alright,” Victor eventually says, with the forced levity of breaking an awkward silence. “So. From now on, I’m going to be your coach. I’m going to get you back in shape to win the Grand Prix Series.” He pumps one fist and poses for emphasis. Makkachin undermines the point by licking his face.

Yuuri stammers out an agreement, forcing it past his countless questions. _Why are you here? Why did you choose me to coach? Why, of all people? Why, why? Why are you mine if I am not yours?_ Or perhaps, _why am I yours when you will never be mine?_

“Why?” he asks simply, hoping that Victor only reads a few of the meanings behind the word.

Victor leans forward, edging Makkachin aside. She sticks her nose up, trots away, makes a full circle, and flops down with her head in Yuuri’s lap. Victor falters, but keeps on. “Yuuri, have you ever seen yourself skate?”

Yes, he has, mostly accidentally when he has caught glimpses of videos.

“You don’t skate to the music. You are the music. Your body, your lines, everything-- you use it, beautifully, to play upon the strings of your heart and the hearts of your audience.” ( _You made me feel Stay Close to Me as strongly I ever did performing it,_ Victor does not say. _I just wanted to see you again,_ he does not admit to himself.)

 _Unfair,_ Yuuri feels. _Unfair, unfair, unfair. Don’t speak to me like a lover when I know you’ll never be mine. You don’t have my words. You don’t have that right. Unfair, unfair._

“We’ll start first thing in the morning,” Victor chirps. His eyes stray to Makkachin, curled up halfway over Yuuri’s lap, and his expression spasms for a moment before returning to a smile. “Got to get you back in winning shape.”

‘Back in winning shape’ is going to mean a lot of running and brutal exercises, Yuuri can already tell. It’s going to hurt like hell, physically and emotionally. Training, working, all the effort of a season, all of it alongside Victor Nikiforov, his idol and unrequited soulmate.

It’s a far cry from where he was this morning.

“Alright,” he says. “Tomorrow.” Then he nudges Makkachin off and leaves the room.

\---

Once the door is closed, Victor lets out a heavy sigh and looks gloomily to the dog, who has curled up with her head on her paws, looking mournful. He agrees entirely with the sentiment.

“He’s even cuter when he’s sober,” he says disconsolately, flopping down onto his back. Makkachin sighs through her nose and clambers back on top of him. He pets her head absently. “What am I doing here?”

It had seemed so clear when he said goodbye to Yakov, so obviously the correct course of action. That video and the fire it set inside his chest-- it was like the universe was telling him, go get him! Now, though, everything seems muddled and wrong. It’s sinking in that he hasn’t thought this through at all, and that Yuuri isn’t actually in on the plan. Victor is pursuing his muse and the cosmically chosen love of his life; Yuuri just got his house crashed by a man he’s only met once while dead drunk. For all Victor knows, the dance off was nothing more to Yuuri than a brief drunken escapade, quickly forgotten.

This may have been a bad idea.

“I think we upset him,” Victor informs Makkachin. She is unimpressed. “He barely said two words in ten minutes. Do you think he hates us?”

“I doubt he hates you,” says a voice behind him, “or at least not both of you. He likes the dog. You, Nikiforov-- I don’t know that one.”

“Mari, right?” Victor asks, turning his head to look up at her. She’d introduced herself briefly and led him to the large room, then vanished like a ghost with a vaguely threatening glance over her shoulder. He’s still not sure what that was about. “Of course he likes Makkachin. Everyone likes Makkachin.”

“You’re right,” she says. There’s a cigarette dangling from one corner of her mouth, distorting her words but also making her vaguely more intimidating. Victor imagines he would look cool with props like that, but if he goes within twenty feet of a pack Yakov starts screeching. Looking fly is not worth that fate. “We all like Makkachin. The question is whether we like you.”

Victor doesn’t respond, just lifts one graceful eyebrow. Mari stiffens.

“Tch. Watch it, Nikiforov. My brother may worship the ground you walk on, but not all of us are blind.”

And then she exits, leaving Victor nonplussed and feeling like he’s missed something. It’s the third time he’s felt this way today.

“Must be a Katsuki thing,” he says to Makkachin. Then he scratches behind her ears so he doesn’t have to think about Mari or Yuuri or love or anything at all.

\---

Of all the potential repercussions Yuuri had considered from Victor becoming his coach, the reporters would not have topped the list. Somehow, though, they end up being almost as bad as the whole soulmate thing.

“It’s so nice to have so many customers,” Hiroko hums to herself. She’s sweeping the front entry as Yuuri stumbles inside, breath ragged.

“Y-yeah,” he gasps, “Nice,” as though he didn’t just finish his daily run with a mad sprint to get away from the hordes clamoring for a comment. It really is nice to see the business so full, though. Victor has somehow singlehandedly revived Hasetsu tourism. Yuuri himself has gotten a fair amount of media attention during his rise in the skating world, but never anything approaching this.

The days begin to blur together, a multicolored smear of scenery from his runs and Minako’s studio, with brief flashes of Victor to fill in the gaps. Yuuri is growing gradually familiar with all the little angles of Victor he’d never gotten to know from the posters, like the precise fall hair down the back of his neck before it tapers out entirely, or the fan of his eyelashes viewed from above. It’s painful, indescribably so, and he’s just falling faster as the days go by, but the hurt is-- not numbing, precisely, but retreating somewhat from view. Yuuri is moving on to more pressing matters, like exercising his way back onto the ice. He’s still miserable, but there are times when he’s not actively thinking about it.

Victor, meanwhile, is discovering the meaning of struggle.

“He had a dog,” he tells Makkachin, whose head his in his lap as he rests on a park bench. Yuuri is out at the ballet studio, and Victor is all by his lonesome to explore the town. He’s made it his mission to swamp Instagram with his selfies before the day is through-- and if it keeps him away from Yuuri’s sister’s cigarette-assisted threatening glares, all the better.

“He had a dog,” he repeats, “which looked like you, only tinier and browner.” And which is now dead, but with Makkachin getting old, that’s not something he likes to think about. “He’s so cute. Yuuri, not the dog. You’re cuter than his dog.” He blinks. “Is that speaking ill of the dead?”

That’s beside the point. The point is that Yuuri is adorable in every version, drunk or sober or embarrassed, or even that weird confident self he slides into sometimes. Confident Yuuri doesn’t find his way out very often, but when he does, it’s pretty sexy. Be still, Victor’s beating heart, but this boy will be the death of him.

“I want to push,” he whines to Makkachin, only because he can do that right now with no one else to hear. “Can’t I just a little?” Makkachin looks up at him, eyes wide. Victor sighs. “Why must you be so reasonable?” he mutters.

In any other circumstance, Victor would be pushing so many boundaries right now. Personal space, personal subjects, backstory, motivations, fears. Physical closeness tops the list. He’s very good at that one. But every time he starts to make the move, he finds himself rethinking the action. Yuuri’s first words to him are scrawled forever on his hip-- but Yuuri has someone else’s words on his body, and his connection is probably a closed loop, not Victor’s frayed end. He looks Yuuri in the eye and sees the shadow of the person who he’s actually meant to be with, and he can’t do it. So he keeps a reasonable, friendly distance.

It sucks.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Victor asks one day, at last unable to contain his curiosity. It’s a little close to home, but a socially acceptable question. “Ex-girlfriends?” He blinks, quirks his lips for a second, continues a little slower. “Soulmate?”

“N-No,” Yuuri says, looking down. He does not clarify which question he is answering. Victor, for his part, does not ask. The subject changes and it's almost as if the brief exchange never happened.

The days roll along, following an expected trajectory. Yuuri’s weight improves, Victor gets a feel for the area and seems to be making progress in peace talks with Mari (though he’s still not sure how he offended her in the first place), and together they settle into a mundane, not-quite-cozy routine. And then--

Impact.

Literally. Yuuri gets kicked into a reception desk.

Yuri Plisetsky’s arrival takes the careful arrangement of their lives thus far and flips the goddamn table. Almost before he knows what’s happening, Yuuri finds himself skating to keep Victor in Japan-- to keep Victor in his life, period. Because he’s learned already in their short time together that he wants that. Victor is demanding, and presumptive, and astonishingly blunt, but Yuuri has seen in the lull moments that this is a man he can love, and he’s seen in himself the selfishness to keep him here. Until he can’t do it any longer, he will keep Victor by his side.

And, he discovers, he will do it however he can. Even making stupid promises.

“Mari,” he moans, “I don’t know how to skate sexy.”

She sighs at him and nudges his ankle with her foot. It doesn’t break his dead, thousand yard stare. He was so stupid today. Incredibly, unbelievably stupid. Yelling about food, yelling about sexy, yelling dumb promises…

“I sounded like an idiot,” he tells the wall across the room, still staring.

“Hm,” says Mari. “You’ll be fine. You always are.”

Cheeks flaming red, he snaps to face her. “I yelled, Mari. I got teary about katsudon, and then I yelled about ‘all the Eros I've got.’ I'm never going to live this down.” He buries his face in his hands.

Frowning, she pokes him with her foot again, this time in the side. “Hey.” He peeks between his fingers. “I believe in you. I’m not going to comment on the sexy part, but whatever you choose, if you set your mind to it, you can get it done. You always do. Little skater nerd.”

“‘M not a nerd,” he mutters, burying himself further behind his fingers. She can tell he's thinking about her words, though.

“That’s what a nerd would say.” She considers him for a moment and is struck by the image of him when he was thirteen, just starting into serious competition, wide-eyed, one foot in the rink and the other still in ballet. He’s come so far since then. She’s watched it happen, and yet it seems to have all occurred in the small spaces where she looked away.

“You’ll win,” she says. “You’ll beat Yurio. I’m sure of it.”

“Thanks,” he says. She’s not sure he believes her, but she knows it’s the best she’ll get until he sorts some things out for himself.

“You know, if it doesn’t turn out, I could always just threaten him into staying.”

“Mari!” Yuuri shoots up from behind his hands to give her a horrified look.

“What?” she asks, fighting down a smile. “He already thinks I’m out to get him.”

“You’re doing that on purpose!”

She shrugs, but does not deny it, and ignores Yuuri’s reprimands for the rest of the evening. Big sister knows best, and if ‘best’ is exacting petty revenge on Nikiforov for being a generation-breaking idiot, well. Never let it be said she shirks her sibling duties.

\---

“I need you to teach me something.”

“It’s too damn late,” Minako whines, but she’s already stumbling back into her house to find decent clothes. Yuuri looks fired up about something, and considering his frenzy over the last week, she’s not about to be the one to let that die.

“I need to learn to move in feminine ways,” he is saying, and slowly, through the lifting haze of sleep, Minako begins to grasp his idea. It’s unexpected and unconventional, and he’s done a right job of it to leave this prep to the night before, but she can already feel it; this is right.

“You’re awfully excited,” she comments as she locks her front door. “I like the idea, though. What made you come up with that?”

And what he says - she’ll think about this for days - what he says, with the air of words repeated, is, “I set my mind to it, and now I’m getting it done.”

She doesn’t know at the time what he’s talking about. She’ll find out soon enough.

\---

_Who am I dancing for?_

Mari had talked about threatening Victor into staying. She was joking, but it got Yuuri to thinking.

_I know who._

He’d been approaching it wrong. He thought he had to find eros within himself to perfect his routine and keep Victor by his side that way.

_Here-- toss him a glance, a little smile, knowing and provocative. Then swing away so he has to pursue you. It’ll keep him in the game_

Now, he realized: skip the middleman. Take the routine out of it.

Just seduce Victor.

After that, everything slid neatly into place. Eros was no longer an act for Yuuri to motivate and perform. Instead it became an exploration of exactly what little tricks he could pull to draw Victor in so far he could never leave. The androgynous costume just convinced him to go ahead with the half-formed idea. Integrating Minako’s teaching was easy enough from there.

Yuuri has few illusions about how well this will work, and even fewer about what his own reaction will be once he surfaces to reality once more. This is both morally dubious and personally unfamiliar, and he's running on fumes after several nights of poor sleep, with all the poor decision making that implies. For now, though, he is the most stunning woman in town, and he has a playboy to ensnare.

_Never has your heart been truly captured-- but never has it been pursued by so skilled an enchantress. Come to me. Let yourself go._

The music ends and he takes his final pose, panting and sweaty and so, so satisfied. Still half in character, he looks to Victor and finds a wide-eyed expression, mostly pleased, but also just a little bit shocked.  Before he slides back out of character to face the embarrassment of what he’s just done, Yuuri allows himself just a moment of satisfaction.

_Got you._

\---

“Mari,” Yuuri says, “I did something stupid.”

“We are not having this same conversation again,” she says without looking up from her magazine

“But it’s worse.”

“All you did was exactly what he asked of you.”

“Never let me do that again. It was a terrible decision.”

“What was a terrible decision?” Victor asks, strolling through the door with Makkachin. Yuuri clams up, turns bright red - well, redder than before - and bolts from the room, leaving Victor looking perplexed. “Was I not supposed to ask?”

“I actually wish he’d told you,” Mari drawls. She turns a page in her magazine. “Hey, did he win?”

“Win what?”

She shoots him a look as if to ask if he is stupid, then turns her attention firmly back to her reading. Victor takes a moment to appreciate that she can hold the threatening aura even without a cigarette and while reading a magazine with a boy band on the cover. “The competition.”

“That was yesterday.” It’s impossible to believe any member of the Katsuki family could still not know the outcome of the event.

“Yeah, I saw. But did he win?”

“Yes?” Victor honestly has no idea where she is going with this. “He beat Yurio by several points.”

“Sure,” she says, looking over the top of her magazine. “But did he _win_?” She holds his gaze for several seconds before dropping it back down again.

When it becomes clear she has nothing else to say, Victor leaves the room, forcing the question and its indisputable answer out of his mind. He needs to find Yuuri. They have a season to discuss.

\---

Here's the thing: Yuuri knows it is selfish. He thinks a lot about that stupid sticker patch and the person whose words lie beneath. Pursuing Victor like this-- it's not something he would normally do. It's not fair to Victor, and it's not fair to his soulmate, waiting out there somewhere to meet their other half.

But here's the other thing: _he doesn't care._

Or rather, he can no longer make himself care, at least not enough to stop. Yuuri despises losing. He’s hardly going to throw the round before he’s even tried. He knows there's a ‘someday’ he may be affecting, and he knows it'll just hurt more in the long run. But this is his only chance with Victor before that someday, and he’ll take it for all it is worth.

This is all their time together. He’s not going let it pass him by.

\---

The email he sends, when it comes down to it, is this:

_“My theme this year is about love, what it means to me and how it has shaped me throughout my life. The short program is already about the passionate, physical forms of love. What I have on my mind now is more about devotion._

_My family and my friends have always been there to support me. I’ve never quite been able to see the extent of it before, but they’ve almost done more than I have to make a skating career possible. The love they have shown me is one side of devotion. It is simple, uncomplicated, and unconditional._

_The other side is both more complicated and more important to the story._

_I’ve found someone. He’s incredible, and I want to hold onto him for as long as I can, but I don’t know how long that will be. He’s given me new direction. It’s as though I was wandering lost and he arrived and illuminated the path. He makes me better, and I think in my own way I make him a little better too. I give him roundabout lessons in how to teach, anyway._

_The devotion I want to express is what I feel for him. He’s the first person I’ve ever really wanted to hold onto, and one of the most impossible to keep. I’ll take as much time as he is willing to give me, but I’ve also resolved to try by my own efforts to make him stay. So far, he has stayed. It’s so amazing to me, that he has chosen to be by my side. I hang on every minute._

_My love for him is bittersweet. I never know how long this will last; I never know how deeply I touch his heart, and he will probably never return my feelings in the same form as I give them. But I know he listens, and I know he watches. I want to show him through this program how deeply he has touched me. I want him to know, in some way, what he means to me, and I hope that somehow I will reach him enough to make him stay, selfish as that wish may be._

_Really, I guess this is a kind of devotion built on hope. That seems like a good way to put it._

_You did a great job with the last composition-- too great, actually. My skating career was too bland to earn any strong music from a composer who knew what they were doing. I think I have a better idea now of who I am and where I am going. I hope you can sense it too, and write it into something beautiful.”_

\---

The music, when he gets it, is perfect.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're coming up on the end, folks! The second half will hopefully be out in a more timely fashion than this one was, and it will definitely be the last one this time. 
> 
> Thanks as always to beta, you can find them on ao3 as FaceWaffles. 
> 
> Thanks you all so much for your support!


	7. First Words (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK THIS IS SO LATE I'M SORRY

Nationals flash by in a streak of color and sound, pausing just long enough on Kenjirou Minami to catch a reminder of Yuuri’s old self before shooting on to China. Victor says goodbye to Makkachin and they climb on a plane, bound for the wider world. Then it is landing, press conference, hot pot, drunk Victor stripping down and splaying himself out over Yuuri’s lap.

It’s an interesting day.

“Is he always like that?” Phichit is scrolling through his phone, but Yuuri knows that he’s listening carefully for the answer.

“Not usually that bad, but. Enough,” Yuuri admits.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Phichit flops backward onto his bedspread with a sigh. They’re holed up in his hotel room, having deposited Victor in his and Yuuri’s room beforehand. Both of them agree it’s high time they caught up in person, so they came back here. Yuuri is having flashbacks to college. All they really need to finish off the scene are his old Victor posters and Phichit’s hamster cage.

“Must be something, skating under a legend,” Phichit says with a laugh. “I don’t know, though, especially if he’s like that all the time.”

“It’s different when we’re on the ice. Victor is really new to the coaching thing, though. I’m not sure he always knows what to do with me.”

“Yuuri, even Ciao Ciao didn't always know what to do with you. Ah!” He covers his mouth. “That sounded bad. I just mean that sometimes it’s hard to know what approach to use.”

Yuuri sighs. “I know. If it makes any difference, it’s not like Victor’s any easier to read. Outside of the rink, I don’t always know how to act around him.”

“Being yourself seems to be working well enough.” Is he-- yes, he is waggling his eyebrows. Yuuri flushes red.

“I-I don’t, you, he-- Phichit!”

“Kidding, kidding!” He swings back upright and leans forward. “Really, though. How are you doing?”

“Great,” Yuuri says. He feels like he manages it pretty convincingly, but Phichit lifts an eyebrow.

“Are you lying to me?”

“N-No! Why would I lie to you?”

“Definitely lying,” Phichit decides. “My magical roommate powers tell me so. Now, what could Yuuri be lying about?” And then he rattles off a long, seemingly random list of potential problems, scrutinizing Yuuri’s face as he does so. Something about this seems…

Yuuri makes a face. “Are you trying to _cold read me?_ ”

Caught, Phichit grins. “They said to practice on a subject who’s easy to read and shows a lot on their face.”

“They?” Yuuri chooses to ignore the part about being easy to read, mostly because the counter argument is indefensible.

“The internet. Now hush and let me feel psychic.” His eyes narrow. “The competition. Customer service. Politics.”

“Politics?”

“We live in dark times, Yuuri, dark times. Food, Hasetsu, family. Love life?” Yuuri, despite himself, feels his face twitch. Phichit’s eyebrows shoot up. “Love life? Yuuri, since when do you have a love life?”

“Since never.”

“Still lying!” Phichit protests. “You can’t hold out on me now, come on! Yuu-ri, you know I live for gossip. I haven’t had anyone to be catty with since you left. Ciao Ciao keeps trying to make me more professional.”

“Good on him.”

“No, not good. Boring!”

“Phichit,” Yuuri says, “please stop asking. I don’t want to talk about it.”

There is a long, considering silence. “Okay,” Phichit says at last. “But you have to tell me a lot more about Victor to make up for it. And to make up for the years I spent with him staring down at me from the walls.”

“Deal,” Yuuri agrees, relieved. He changes the subject to Phichit’s move back to Thailand, and they talk for a couple hours before adjourning to get some sleep before the competition. Yuuri slips into his and Victor’s hotel room, easing the door closed behind himself. The desk lamp is on-- he forgot to turn it out before leaving the room-- and in its warm glow he sees Victor, the crisp, handsome lines of his face gentled by the diffuse light.

 _Love life,_ he thinks. Phichit doesn’t know the half of it.

\---

A day later, Yuuri lies awake, utterly unable to rest. He’s first on the leaderboard, the score to beat. He’s far from home, he has his long program tomorrow. And he is, according to Chris, a thief.

Has he stolen Victor?

It’s not a new idea, but somehow it reverberates strongly enough to make him ill. The only answer is yes. He’s stealing Victor, from the world and his soulmate both.

How wrong is it of him? He’s never really allowed himself to slow down and ask that question before. How morally suspect is he? How thoughtless has he been? He’s been forging ahead, heedless, careless-- but now, all at once, it has caught him. He’s found the flaw in his plan.

Stealing Victor from his someday-soulmate, that is a thought he has already considered. Stealing Victor away from the entire world, from skating, that’s something new. And-- he realizes this with a sickening lurch-- he is stealing from Victor too. Victor’s career, Victor’s time with his soulmate-- he has been cruelest to Victor himself. It’s selfish, a crime, and made all the worse by his utter lack of repentance.

He doesn’t sleep.

\---

“...I’ll take responsibility by resigning as your coach.”

For a long while nothing happens. Victor feels himself begin to waver as Yuuri does nothing but stand and stare at him, and he begins to wonder if perhaps he has made a mistake.

Then Yuuri starts crying.

“Don’t,” Yuuri sobs, “don’t do that. Don’t _say_ that, I can’t, I don’t. Please don’t,” and Victor isn’t sure what he’s asking for anymore. Victor isn’t sure of much of anything right now, aside from the fact that he has screwed up royally and needs desperately to fix it. He holds his hands up and approaches.

“Yuuri, I--”

Yuuri, perhaps unconsciously, takes a small step back. Victor lowers his hands.

“I just-- I don’t, I’m--” His words aren’t working, caught behind his sobbing. Victor has seen Yuuri upset, but he’s never seen this total inability to articulate. It’s frightening, if only because he has no idea how to handle it.

“Yuuri, I wouldn’t actually quit.”

“I know! I’m just--” Yuuri cuts himself off again. Victor wishes he would just speak.

“Just what?”

“I’m just scared,” he cries. He buries his face in his hands, scrubbing roughly at his cheeks with the sleeves of his jacket. “I’m just so s-scared that you’ll leave. I don’t want you to leave.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

“I know that!”

“It doesn't sound like you do.” Victor tries again to approach. “Yuuri, look at me.” After several seconds, he obeys. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t ever want to leave.”

“I know. Th-that’s the problem.”

“How is that the _problem?_ ”

“I’m keeping you!”

 _...Ah_ , Victor thinks. _Found it._

“I’m s-stealing you from skating and from the rest of the world and from your other relationships and it’s all b-because you think I’m good, at this, and if I’m not, then you’ve wasted s-so much time and you look bad and I just--” Yuuri makes a loud, distressed noise. “You don’t want to leave, ever, and I don’t want you to leave either, b-but what if leaving is what’s best for you?” He looks down and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m so selfish.”

Victor hugs him. Yuuri makes a little squeaking noise on the impact, like one of Makkachin’s toys. Victor just squeezes him tighter.

“You’re worth that,” Victor says, and damn it, he’s all choked up. “Don’t worry, you’re worth that. You’re worth all of that.”

They stand there, pressed together, and slowly Yuuri relaxes. His hands reach up to grasp at the fabric of Victor’s suit. He’s crying, still. Victor is holding in his own tears.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Victor says. “You’re worth every second. I believe in you.”

(Yuuri is thinking, _he’s telling the truth_. He is also thinking, _this won’t be the truth forever_.)

Half an hour later, Yuuri goes for a quad flip. Victor sprints to the edge of the ice, and he almost does something stupid. He almost tries, almost throws out his caution and jumps. For a moment he lets himself imagine the impact, and the stupid line he’d give after, and the silly smiles they’d share. He almost does it.

Instead, he remembers just in time that this is not where they are meant to go, and he lurches to the side just enough to turn the tackle into just a hug. They laugh, breathless, and cling to each other like anchors. “Well done, Yuuri,” he murmurs in his ear. “Well done.”

It’s not what he really wants, but it’s a good day nonetheless.

\---

Packing, checkout, airplane to Moscow. Yuuri has a brief encounter with Yuri Plisetsky in an elevator, which is enough to jar him a bit, but not throw him completely. He’s feeling good, zoned in. The short program goes beautifully. Things are looking pretty positive.

Then Makkachin chokes on sticky buns.

The next day goes to _shit_.

In the end, everything turns out alright. Makkachin lives, Yuuri scrapes a GPF qualification, Yuri even seems to be warming up to him. But the realization of how much he has come to rely on Victor’s presence is uncomfortable. What is Yuuri going to do if (when?) Victor goes back into competition? Or if (when??) Victor finds his soulmate? It seems dangerous to have so much of his performance and wellbeing invested in one person, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s only at this level because of Victor in the first place-- and that’s not to mention the issue of his own mark.

He does his best to put the question from his mind. Until the end of the season, he tells himself. He’ll figure it out when the Final is over.

Barcelona is a beautiful city. Yuuri and Victor spend the day as tourists, taking obnoxious selfies and trying new foods. It turns into a shopping spree in the afternoon, when Victor gets it in his head to buy Yuuri a birthday gift. For a few minutes after this suggestion, he pulls Yuuri around by the hand, seemingly without realizing. Yuuri wants to squeeze tighter, but doesn’t for fear that drawing attention to it will make Victor let go.

Near the conclusion of the day, when they are ready to return to the hotel, a Christmas market reminds Yuuri of Victor’s birthday. He realizes he has no idea what to get him.

“Victor, what do you want for your birthday?”

Victor hums. “I don’t know. I’ve never really celebrated it, actually.”

“That doesn’t help me,” huffs Yuuri. Victor just laughs.

“Sorry.”

They walk for a minute or so, Yuuri lost in thought, until they happen upon a brightly lit square. Multicolored lights strung on every possible object make the place nearly blinding--but something else catches Yuuri’s attention. A shop on the other side of the square. He laughs and Victor follows his gaze, trying to find what’s funny.

“A flower shop?”

“I had an idea. Come on,” Yuuri says, still grinning, and he waves for Victor to follow as he jogs across the square, checking his coat pockets as he goes.

Five minutes later, they walk out of the shop, Yuuri with a blue rose in hand, Victor looking mystified. They take a seat on a bench in the square, and Yuuri removes the flower from its plastic sleeve.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of scissors on hand, would you?” Victor does not. Yuuri purses his lips, then shrugs and uses his fingernails to break the stem to be only a few inches long. “Hold still.” He fishes around his jacket pocket for some bobby pins, which he’d taken out of his hair after some competition or another and absently dropped into his coat. He is very thankful for them now, as he pins the rose into place.

“There,” he says when he finishes. “Consider this a temporary birthday present. I’ll find something else later.”

Victor touches the flower behind his ear. He still looks confused, but now it’s shifting into understanding mixed with delight. “It’s like that crown, when I had long hair.”

Yuuri nods, flushes, and looks at his fingers, sneaking glances up every few seconds. “I-It’s a nice color on you.”

“I love it. Thank you, Yuuri.”

“It’s nothing, I just--”

Victor interrupts him by reaching over and taking his hand. “Thank you, Yuuri,” he repeats, beaming. “It’s adorable.”

Yuuri peeks down at their clasped hands and, after several moments of hesitation, gently squeezes in return. “Y-You’re welcome.”

They sit like that for several minutes, both pink in the face, people-watching and commenting on the most creative places the decorators have managed to string lights. Eventually they remember that they are supposed to be heading back to the hotel and decide instead to go find a restaurant for dinner, as it’s getting to be that time anyway. Somehow, without Yuuri quite knowing how it happens, they acquire four of the five other Grand Prix competitors, plus Mari and Minako.

He wonders if anyone in the restaurant follows skating. If they do, this table must be quite a sight.

Victor gets a lot of questions about the rose, and he mostly deflects them to how cute it is and how well the color suits him. Yuuri turns a little redder every time someone asks, which he feels is probably a giveaway to some of the story behind it, but no one comments-- though Phichit does waggle his eyebrows at Yuuri while the rest aren’t looking.

Minako and Mari spend most of the meal blissed out in the presence of all the top skaters at the table. Phichit and Yuuri take the opportunity to catch up on the time between Cup of China and now, Victor and Chris seem to have some sort of sexual stare contest across the tabletop (Yuuri given up trying to understand that relationship), and Yuri and Otabek… are acting oddly. Yuri seems weirdly soft today, and Yuuri is pretty sure he and Otabek are holding hands under the table. At the very least they’re sitting quite close to each other. He catches Phichit’s eye and tilts his head. Phichit shrugs and seems to agree, but there’s only so much that can be communicated silently without arousing suspicion.

“It’s kind of weird for us all to be together like this before the Final,” Yuuri notes absently after food has been consumed and some alcohol has gone around. “Last year I was so scared the whole time, even at the banquet. I couldn’t even talk to Victor.”

The table immediately falls silent. He realizes after several seconds that it’s because they’re all staring at him. “What?”

“You don’t remember?” Victor asks.

“Remember what?”

So apparently Yuuri had a rip-roaring time at last year’s banquet and was so blackout drunk that he doesn’t remember any of it. There’s photo and video evidence, and a distinct lack of clothing in either.

He _pole danced._

“Oh god,” he moans into his hands. “I don’t remember anything. How do I not remember anything?”

“It was a lot of champagne,” says Chris. “Your pole dancing is excellent, by the way.”

Yuuri turns desperately to Victor. “How have you never mentioned this before?”

“It never came up?” Yuuri scoffs, incredulous, and Victor holds up both hands. “I never had a reason to mention it.”

Those photos can’t be the entire evening, either. There’s probably even more that Yuuri doesn’t remember, just a whole load of other embarrassing stuff stored away on people’s phones, a few clicks away from internet infamy. He groans and covers his face again.

“It’s not too bad,” Minako tries. “At least you look hot doing it.” Mari makes a face and elbows her in the side. “What? It’s true.”

“I’m going back to the hotel,” Yuuri declares, standing. To his dismay, Victor rises to join him, and the others look like they’re considering joining. “Alone, please. Let me wallow in my shame.”

“Gross,” Yuri mutters.

Yuuri begins to panic. He needs a minute to clear his head about the banquet last year, and there’s something vague about it that’s bothering him. He isn’t sure what it is--every time he thinks he gets close it slips away--but he really wants to think through it properly, and to do that he needs to escape this group. He searches desperately for a diversion.

From a standing angle, he can see that Yuri and Otabek are absolutely holding hands.

“L-Look at that!” He shouts, pointing. And just like that, Mari and Minako are on it.

“WHAT!”

“Yurio got a boyfriend?”

And in the ensuing confusion, Yuuri dashes away into the night.

He spends the first moment of his escape feeling relieved about getting away. Then, as the pride fades, the panic sets back in. He begins mentally retracing every step of the banquet last year, trying to find the point where he blacked out and maybe retrieve some memories of the vanished hours. But there’s nothing. He doesn’t recall any of it.

He’s upset by this realization on several levels. On one hand, it’s hours of embarrassment, of which people have tangible evidence. On another, it’s definitive proof that he absolutely can not handle alcohol. On yet another, the him in the pictures seemed to be having a great time, and he doesn’t remember a moment of it.

He got to dance with Victor a whole year ago, and he doesn’t remember.

He danced with… Victor…

Oh.

Oh _fuck._

_Did he talk to Victor last year?_

What if-- He almost can’t make himself think the possibility. What if he said his first words to Victor then? What if Victor has _those_ words under his sticker patch?

What if they match after all?

Yuuri realizes he has stopped walking. His mouth has gone dry. His heart is pounding. He should start walking again, but he can’t make himself move.

Could he have said Victor’s words on that night he can’t remember? But then Victor should know, right? He should have said something, they should have figured this out before now. Victor would have approached him when they were sober, wouldn’t he?

But Victor doesn’t know Yuuri has his words.

Victor probably spoke to him at the banquet expecting a reaction, forgetting the question about the photo.

Victor wouldn’t know either.

_Holy shit._

What if Yuuri is wrong? What if he’s grasping at straws to fool himself into thinking he could have that happily ever after? He wouldn’t put it past himself. He’s been pining too badly for the last few months to not at least consider the possibility. What if he’s wrong?

But what if he’s right?

“Yuuri! Hey, wait for me!”

Yuuri turns to see Phichit sprinting down the avenue, trying to catch up. He wasn’t walking anyway, so he waits for his friend, still quietly freaking out. Phichit eventually draws level with him.

“Hey, Yuuri! Are you alright? You ran really fast.”

If Phichit got away, then Victor and the others probably aren’t far behind. Suddenly terrified, Yuuri seizes Phichit by the wrist and hauls him down a side street, ducking around several corners and ultimately into a little 24-hour drugstore, Phichit protesting all the while. Yuuri checks out the window to see if they were followed, then finally breathes when he doesn’t see anyone he knows in the passers by. He hushes Phichit’s wild questioning with a frantic wave.

“I c-can’t risk running into Victor right now!”

“Um, why not? Yuuri, what the heck? You can’t just--”

“I know, I know! I-I just, I can’t.” He tries to convey the exact amount of ‘can't’ in his face, and it seems to work, as Phichit relents slightly.

“Okay, okay. Calm down. Just breathe, okay?” Yuuri breathes. “Alright. Now please explain.”

So Yuuri does. The entire story, from the commemorative photo thing to his stupid pining to the sudden, heady possibility that maybe Victor might feel it too. He cries a lot while telling it, and it’s probably pretty iffy on the timeline, but it gets the point across.

“But I d-don’t know,” he finally blubbers. “W-What if it’s true? And w-what if it’s not? Should I talk to him? Or l-leave it? I don’t know what to do, because I could either f-fix everything or ruin everything and I d-don’t know which option does what, and I just--.”

“Hey, come here.” Phichit tugs him carefully into a hug. Yuuri doesn’t relax, just keeps crying. “Yuuri. It’ll be fine. I... Okay, I’m not going to give you any advice right now in case I make it worse.” Yuuri makes a miserable noise of confirmation. “But I think you need someone who does give good advice, so I’m going to text Mari and take you to her and Minako’s hotel room for a while. We’ll make sure to avoid all the other skaters completely. Okay?”

Yuuri nods, still sobbing a little. Phichit gives him a careful pat on the back.

“We’ll figure it out. Just breathe. Can you give me Mari’s phone number?” Phichit pulls out his phone with one hand, maintaining the hug with the other.

Yuuri rattles off the number. “I-I think I cry too m-much.”

“Nah, you just feel a lot of things.”

“Which is the s-same as crying too much.”

“Hey, something like this and I’d probably break down too. Just hang in there.”

Fifteen minutes later finds him with Mari in her hotel room, exhausted on the bed and blowing his nose into a tissue as she and Phichit converse quietly by the door. Minako broke off during the return trip to herd the main skater party back to their hotel and leave the siblings alone to talk. Yuuri feels bad to be keeping her out of her room, but he’s feeling pretty bad in general, so the feeling doesn’t make much impact.

Phichit leaves with a quiet, “See you tomorrow, Yuuri,” and the sound of a closing door. All is quiet. Mari, still by the entry, lets out a long breath through her nose and slowly comes to sit on the edge of the other bed.

For a long while, there is nothing but their breathing.

“Phichit explained it to me,” Mari finally says. Yuuri doesn’t react beyond a twitch around the mouth. “You’re worried about if you do tell him, and you’re worried about if you don’t.”

Long silence.

“I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you what you need to do. Don’t decide now whether to tell him. Decide when you’ll decide.”

“What?” Yuuri mumbles.

“Look.” Mari leans forward, planting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands. Her brow is furrowed, and the expression on her face makes Yuuri want to duck and hide. “This is pretty bad timing for figuring this out. You need to sleep tonight. That means you need to settle this in your mind, at least for a while. Right?”

“Right,” he says when it becomes clear she is waiting.

“You have three options. You tell him now, you tell him later, or you tell him never. Right?”

“Right.”

“Between telling him now and telling him later, would the ultimate result change?”

“...N-No.”

“And between telling him later and telling him never, would the results of the next couple days change?”

“No.”

“So your real options are to rip off the band-aid and tell him now so you can stop worrying about it, or to put the issue on a back burner until after the Grand Prix.”

“But what if I told him now and I’m wrong? Th-That could ruin everything! If he knew I have his words...”

Mari sits back. “Well, then you have your decision, don’t you?”

It seems simple when she lays it out like this, but Yuuri can’t quite reconcile the idea of not thinking about it. Put it on a back burner? He doesn’t understand how that could work. He can’t even think about Victor without all the questions starting back up and crowding his head. What if, what if, what if. He gives her a desperate look, and she sighs.

“Yuuri, I can’t control what goes on in your head. All I can do is tell you what I think. You know I’ll support you whatever you choose.”

“I know.” That, at least, is one of the unwavering constants in Yuuri’s life.

“I just think that if you’re not going to make a choice until later, it’s not worth worrying about that choice right now. Worry when you get there, not before.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

She laughs a little, more a breath than anything. “It’s not easy. Worrying is easy. Calm you have to try for.”

Yuuri scrubs at his eyes. He’s finally done crying and now his eyes are all swollen and awful. He’s full-body exhausted. “I have to go back to the other hotel. It’s late. Victor is probably wondering where I am.”

Humming an agreement, Mari rises. Yuuri drags himself up into a sitting position, ready to stand as well, but instead she sits down beside him and curls an arm around his shoulders. She smells like cigarette smoke.

“You’ll be fine,” she says. “No matter what you do, I believe in you. You’ll figure it out.”

“Set my mind to it and get it done?”

She squeezes. “Exactly. Now hurry back before it’s morning.”

“Mari, it’s not _that_ late,” Yuuri says, cracking a feeble smile.

“It’s pretty late.” She releases his shoulder and leans back on her hands. Yuuri stands. “Actually, put some water on your eyes first, it’ll get rid of some of the puffiness. The cold outside should help too.”

He obeys, and feels better afterward. His mind is still buzzing, but he feels more settled than before. Worry when you get there. Set your mind to it and get it done.

“Thank you, Mari,” he says at the door. She nods.

“You’re welcome. Now go get some sleep.”

He goes, steeling himself to return to Victor. He hopes this calm can last overnight.

\---

Something is off when Yuuri finally gets back to the hotel room. Victor examines him the moment he comes through the door, having waited at least twenty minutes in expectation, and what he finds is disconcerting. At first glance Yuuri looks okay, but a second time over reveals clear evidence of hard crying. He looks cold, and upset, but also... strangely determined?

Something is wrong. Victor has an unsettled feeling, like something has shifted. Yuuri ran away from the restaurant after his embarrassing pictures came out-- that was fine, that made sense. It makes Victor feel bad now to think about it, because in retrospect it means they probably went too far with the teasing, but it’s not necessarily out of character. Yuuri disappearing with Phichit is making Victor worry, though. Wherever they detoured, Yuuri came back much worse for wear.

What happened?

They exchange greetings and goodnights, pivoting around each other to get ready for bed, and Victor’s worry only grows. There’s a skittishness in Yuuri that he hasn’t seen since his first few days in Hasetsu. It’s almost like they’re strangers again.

Could it just be competition nerves? Victor frowns at himself in the mirror, pausing in brushing his teeth to contemplate. Pre-comp anxiety wouldn’t be out of place, considering the magnitude of the next day, but that doesn’t seem to be it. Yuuri is tense, but it seems to get worse the closer he is to Victor, and spike every time Victor speaks to him. No, it’s something to do with Victor himself.

He wishes he had a clue what it is.

They’re both settled down for the evening, and Victor is just about to turn out the bedside lamp when Yuuri finally says, “Hey, Victor?” Victor hums. “We should dance again. Not drunk this time. It looked--” he breaks off, takes a breath, starts again. “It looked like fun.”

_And the lucky winner is Victor Nikiforov! Dance with me!_

Victor freezes.

That is just not fair.

“Sure,” he says, hoping desperately that his voice doesn’t give him away. “That would be. Nice.”

“Really?”

“M-hm. At this year’s banquet, we’ll dance again.”

Yuuri smiles sleepily. “Thank you, Victor.”

“Of course, Yuuri.” Victor reaches again for the lamp. “Sleep tight.”

He turns off the light.

\---

Early in the morning, careful not to wake Yuuri, Victor goes for a walk by the ocean. The light of the sunrise glares off the horizon’s edge like fire, and he leans on the barrier to watch the slow creep of day over the sea. The ocean breeze sweeps through his hair. It’s peaceful, and it distracts him somewhat from the renewed thought of the open-ended words on his skin. Last night had dredged up a lot of pain, so he’s glad for a decent beginning of the day. He breathes in.

Then he’s attacked from behind.

“The fuck are you looking so depressed for?”

“Yurio,” Victor whines, rubbing at the points on his back where several well-aimed kicks landed, “be nicer to your superiors!”

“Superior my ass,” scoffs Yuri. “You’re not even in competition this year. Plus you’re old. You’re going to be feeble in months, I guarantee it.”

“Feeble!” Victor squawks. “I’ll have you know I am in the prime of my life!”

“Then what the fuck are you doing coaching?” Yuri crosses his arms and stamps his foot, livid. Sometimes, with all the swearing, Victor forgets that he’s a child. This kind of thing always brings the realization right back.

“I’m passing on my knowledge! It’s a good deed, Yurio!”

“Like hell it’s a good deed. You’re just moony eyed over Katsudon.” Victor begins to deny it, but Yuri just snorts in disgust and rolls his eyes. “You’re so obvious, it’s painful. Like, I actually want to barf sometimes.”

“It’s not like that,” Victor tries halfheartedly, but he deflates when he sees that Yuri is not having it. “Is it really that obvious?”

“I want to claw my own eyes out so I never have to see it again.”

“That’s a yes, then.”

“The hell are you doing, anyway? I figured the two of you’d be hitched by now.”

“We’re not like that, Yuri.” Victor runs a hand through his hair. “Yuuri doesn’t feel that way about me.”

Yuri blinks, then does a visible double take. “What the fuck? Are you serious?”

Victor raises an eyebrow.

“Holy shit, you’re serious. I knew you were stupid, but even I didn’t think you’d suck this badly at life.”

“Yuri.”

“Katsudon is a freaking swooning maiden for you.”

“No, he’s not.” Victor expels a puff of breath.

“He is, though! He totally is! I know because it’s fucking disgusting to watch and I can’t unsee it.”

This is painful, mostly because Victor wishes he were right. “Yuri, please drop the subject.”

“Um, no?” Yuri is starting to gesticulate. Both arms are fully committed. Victor would be impressed by the amount of frustration they convey if he weren’t slowly growing fed up with the conversation. “I won’t drop the subject, because you’re being stupid.”

“I’m not being stupid.”

“So stupid! Take a look at him, would you? He goes fucking starry-eyed when you walk into a room. You dumbasses are both pining, and you’re too stupid to do anything about it!”

Victor’s patience is running thin. “We’re _not_ \--”

“Well, yeah you are, ‘cause you’re too dumb to see that he--”

“I have his words, he doesn’t have mine, and I am painfully aware of it, so please _stop talking_.”

Yuri stops talking. He seems stunned out of speech. Victor lets out a breath and sags sideways to lean on the barrier, passing a hand over his eyes. He is suddenly very tired.

A long minute passes.

“Shit,” Yuri says, averting his eyes. Victor waits, but he doesn’t say anything else for a while.

“You done?” he asks.

“No. I just. Need to think about how to say it.”

Victor scoffs. “That’s new.”

“Shut up, Nikiforov.” Yuri genuinely does look pensive, and rather contrite. He opens his mouth a few times, then closes it. It takes a minute before he is ready to speak.

“So Otabek and I are soulmates, right?”

Victor nods. This had been established the night before at dinner, when Yuuri had dropped the tip to the girls and run.

“We kind of dodged the question about how we met, though.” Yuri takes a breath. “We actually met five years ago, at Yakov’s summer training camp.”

“What?” Victor asks, eyebrows shooting up. That had not been what he was expecting.

Yuri nods, looking intensely uncomfortable. “I said Otabek’s words on the last day, but I’d been an asshole to everyone for the whole camp before that, so he didn’t feel like he could talk to me. And then we didn’t see each other again until yesterday.”

“Wow.”

“Shitty, right?”

“Yeah,” Victor says. “Shitty.”

Surprised, Yuri furrows his brow. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”

“There is a time and place.”

“Yeah.” Yuri purses his lips. “Anyway. If I’d been less of a dick at that camp, Otabek and I would have had five more years. Same if he’d gotten it together and talked to me at some point between then and now. And if we didn't get the story straight yesterday, then we’d have spent even longer being miserable.”

He pauses as though expecting a response. Victor just blinks at him. Yuri growls in frustration and tosses his hands up. “What I’m saying is _get your shit together_. Okay? Okay. Good talk. Have fun watching me win gold.” And then he walks away, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets.

“My Yuuri’s going to win gold,” Victor calls reflexively to his retreating form. Yuri flips him off. “Oi, Yurio!”

He keeps walking as though he didn’t hear.

“Thank you for telling me!”

He stops.

“Yeah, whatever. Just fucking do something about it.”

Then he leaves, at a run this time. Victor is left alone with his thoughts, the sunrise, and the sea. Frowning, he turns back out to face the dawn.

\---

Grand Prix Final, day one, is successful enough, if somewhat fraught emotionally. Yuuri performs well but puts a hand down on the quad flip, and Yuri breaks Victor’s short program record. By the end of the day, just about everyone is ready to sleep.

Yuuri is not ready to sleep. Yuuri has been _thinking_.

It’s time to let it go.

He can’t keep Victor from another year of competition. He isn’t sure he himself could manage another year of competition. It’s just-- It’s hard to look at this season and think, _I am never going to do this again._ He finally feels like he’s where he’s always wanted to be. This is what he’s been working for, all these years. And now, when he’s gotten it, he’s going to leave it.

But then, he’d gone into this season expecting it to be his last anyway. He’s not getting any younger, and skaters only last so long. He’s known that from the outset. It’s just finally come due.

And Victor…

Staying in competition with Victor as his coach means keeping Victor from the sport, a separation that’s already hurting him. Staying in competition with a different coach--that’s not an option. Yuuri can feel it. Retirement, though, means taking the chance that Victor won’t be in his life at all. Retirement means that whether they ever see each other again comes down to the words on his ankle and on Victor’s hip.

Looking at Victor’s face as he watches the competition, as Yuri breaks his record, Yuuri knows there was never really a choice at all.

\---

This is a story about love.

When it comes down to it, when everything else is pared away, this is a story about love. It’s about inevitability, and the impossibility, and the stupid ways we find each other and lose each other and find each other again. It’s about devotion, and the journey. It’s about that intangible, incredible idea of an ‘us.’

As Yuuri glides his way through his free skate, he is thinking, _This is a story about Victor and me. This is a story about my family, their support, their belief. This is a story about everything that changes when you look around you and find, in opening your eyes, the love you’ve had all along._

_I wonder what would happen if I changed this jump._

He can’t know what’s going to happen. He can’t know whether he and Victor are really matched or not. But he loves him. He knows that much. He can show them all that much.

He loves him.

_I want to stay by his side. I want him to stay by mine. I think he wants it too. I think he loves me, match or none. I hope he goes back. He needs to skate like he needs to breathe._

_I think I could change this jump too._

It’s a story about love. Victor is written into this music. He is written into this routine. He is written into Yuuri’s skating, carved into the ice. He lives in Yuuri now, even if Yuuri will never skate like this again, and in that way he will never truly leave.

_No matter what happens, Victor lives in me._

_Show them. Here’s the quad flip._

_Got it. I wonder what he thought._

Whatever happens, wherever they go from here, he knows how he feels. He’ll always have Victor with him. And if Victor goes, it might be hard, and it might be miserable. But Yuuri will have this much. He will always have this.

He loves him. Knowing that is almost enough.

And the music fades out. He stops. Slowly, the roar of the crowd filters back into his ears. Down the line of his extended arm, he sees Victor on the verge of crying, face split open in a smile, and he feels himself start to tear up. He beams, shouts, pumps his fist.

That’s it. That’s the competition.

It was _perfect_.

\---

A silver medal and a new world record. Yuuri stands on the podium and wonders if he’s dreaming. Photographers, video feed, a roaring crowd, the sheer heady rush of _I made_ _it_. He can’t stop smiling, even as his face begins to ache.

Medal in hand, marveling at the weight of it and the fact that _he just came in second at the Grand Prix Final_ , he makes his way to Victor at the edge of the rink. He offers the medal across the barrier with a grin.

“Want to kiss it?”

Victor stands motionless, just staring at him, until Yuuri starts to wonder if he’s functioning properly. Then Victor reaches out, takes him by the face, and kisses _him_.

Huh.

Just as Yuuri figures out that yes, this is happening, no, he is still not dreaming, and hey, maybe he should kiss back now, Victor pulls away. They are both flushed, breathing faster, flickering between expressions as they catch back up to reality. Victor lets his hands fall from Yuuri’s face and coughs into his fist.

“I-- You-- At the banquet, last year. I, ah--”

“You’re my soulmate,” Yuuri blurts, then turns beet red. “I-I mean, your words, I have them, you said them. Last year, after the Final. I don’t know if you have mine-- A-Are you alright?”

Victor has covered his face in his hands. “Oh my god,” he groans. “Yurio was right.”

“V-Victor?”

Victor grasps Yuuri by the shoulders, bracing them both at arm’s length. “You’re mine too,” he says. “You said my words at the banquet. You asked me to dance.”

Yuuri blinks. “We match?”

Victor nods, an identical dumb expression on his face. “We match.”

They stand, letting the realization sink in.

This is real. They match.

Yuuri starts crying. Victor, tearing up himself, yanks Yuuri into a hug. They cling to each other as tight as they can over the top of the barrier. Yuuri’s whole body shakes as he processes this new state of being, this sudden feeling of _Oh. That’s what it is._ Victor revels in the warmth of Yuuri’s body in his arms, so like that dance a year ago, and at once completely different.

They match.

“Fucking finally,” hollers Yuri Plisetsky from thirty feet around the rink. Victor, without looking, flips him off. Yuri snorts in disgust and turns back to Otabek. “They owe me,” he sniffs. Otabek raises one dubious eyebrow. “Shut up.”

Overall? It’s a fantastic day.

\---

Victor forgot to put the blue rose in water, so it’s all wilty by the time the banquet rolls around. He cradles it in his hands, frowning. Yuuri huffs a laugh.

“We can buy another one.”

“But this one is special.”

“You can keep it, just don’t wear it.”

“It was my birthday present.”

“Victor, you can’t wear a wilted flower to a formal banquet.”

They buy a new one. Victor puts it behind his ear until they reach the banquet hall, then relents and tucks it into the breast pocket of his suit.

The hall that they enter is much the same as what Victor recalls of last year’s banquet; classy music, fancy dress, champagne and little finger foods on platters. It’s all very dignified, and if Yuuri has any say in the matter, it’s going to stay that way. He’s very determined to not even touch alcohol this year. Victor has heard the whole speech about it three times in the last few hours.

Victor hopes that someone else will take over Yuuri’s job as leader of drunken celebration this year, or at least bring back the fun music. Dancing is so much more fun when it’s to Beyonce.

\---

Half an hour into the banquet, Phichit waves Yuuri down and tries to hand him a glass of champagne. Yuuri shoves his hands in his pockets and gives him the closest thing he can muster to a death glare (a disgruntled frown). Phichit laughs.

“What, not going to recreate the precious memories of your first meeting?” he asks good-naturedly, shrugging and keeping the glass for himself. Yuuri shudders.

“First of all, I don’t have precious memories of it because I drank. And second, it wasn’t our first meeting, remember?”

“Oh. Right!” Phichit lights up and gestures with the hand holding the glass, almost spilling it. “Did you guys ever get that story straight?”

“Yeah, first thing after getting back to the hotel. I guess I picked him out of a crowd last year and made him dance with me.”

Phichit sighs. “Man, I wish I’d been there. Think of the pictures.”

“Thank goodness you weren’t there,” counters Yuuri. “Just think of the pictures.”

They look at each other, then break into laughter.

“But yeah,” resumes Yuuri when he manages to pull himself together, “we figured it out. He doesn’t even remember saying my words. I ran away before he could get a good look at my face, so he thought I was just some random fan. I forgot saying his too, though, so we’re even.”

“I’m almost impressed,” Phichit teases. “Childhood idol, artistic muse, double amnesia-- You’ve managed to write the plot of a soap opera all on your own.”

“Honestly, most soap operas would be less stressful,” agrees Yuuri.

“Does he know about your posters?” Yuuri turns red. Phichit’s eyebrows shoot up. “What? Really?”

“H-He just showed up at Hasetsu,” Yuuri defends. “I didn’t have time to clear out my room.”

“And you didn’t scare him off?” Phichit shakes his head in exaggerated disbelief. “You two really are meant to be.”

“He actually seemed flattered.”

“You’re kidding!”

They chat for a while longer, gossiping about Victor’s return, JJ Leroy’s flop of a program, and the relationship between Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin. Phichit dubs them ‘Otayuri’ and decides that it is now his personal mission to kickstart their instagram fanbase. Yuuri, who rarely uses his instagram, wishes him luck before leaving to find Victor again.

“I’m glad you figured it out, Yuuri,” Phichit says as he turns to go. “I hope both of you are really happy.”

Yuuri turns back and, after a hesitation, gives him a hug. “Thank you,” he says. “For everything.”

Phichit hugs him back. “That’s what friends are for.”

Phichit stays and fiddles with his phone for a bit, pretending to check his tumblr feed while actually scoping out good spots for fancy party pictures. He’s been to plenty of schmancy skater banquets in his time, but the lighting at this one is particularly aesthetic, and he wants to capture it as best he can. He almost doesn’t notice the presence that appears at his elbow.

“Thanks again for helping him out the other night,” says Mari. She’s dressed up for the occasion, but she still has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, which kind of ruins the style. “If you hadn’t told me, he probably wouldn’t have slept.”

“No problem,” says Phichit. “Are you allowed to smoke in here?”

“Not like it’s lit.” She folds her arms, and one corner of her mouth curls up. Phichit follows her gaze to where Yuuri and Victor stand with their arms linked, laughing at some joke. “I still have to give Nikiforov a threatening talk, but I think I’ll do it tomorrow. Yuuri looks happy.”

“He does. They’re good for each other.”

Though Phichit can’t claim to know Mari beyond passing interaction, the quiet that falls is amicable, and when Phichit leaves to go take those aesthetic party photos, they part with the silent understanding of allies.

\---

The meal and most of the party passes in a polite blur, all niceties and small talk. It’s boring, but pleasant enough. The food is good, the people are fine. Yuuri slips off to talk to Phichit for at least twenty minutes before winding his way back to Victor. It’s all just very dull.

It almost stays that way.

An hour and a half before the scheduled end of the banquet, at the point where guests are just beginning to excuse themselves, Chris sidles over to Victor, champagne flute in hand. He’s a little pink in the cheeks, but not quite gone yet, and his face says he’s looking to stir things up. He’s probably wanting to forget about the rankings for a while.

“Hey, Victor,” he asks, raising a brow suggestively, “don’t you think this party could use a little energy?”

Victor knocks back the remains of his glass and grins. “Absolutely.”

“Victor,” Yuuri says warily, “what are you--”

“Music!” Chris bellows. “Does anyone here have music?”

There are several moments of confused muttering and odd glances. Then, from the far corner of the room, Ed Sheeran blares into life. Surprised, Victor seeks out the source of the sound and finds a portable speaker provided by the same person as last year, who shrugs and turns the volume up higher. Victor flashes a smile and a thumbs up, then grabs Yuuri by the wrist and hauls him to an open space, which soon becomes a dance floor for all and sundry.

Dancing with sober Yuuri is a different experience from dancing with drunk Yuuri. They're both excellent dancers and have clearly had some partner training, but sober Yuuri takes a while to warm up and forget about the people watching. Sober Yuuri is also easier to do tricks with; Victor trusts his strength and body control, whereas he hadn't let drunk Yuuri lift him for fear of being dropped.

But then, both sober and drunk Yuuri eventually end up laughing madly, totally committed to the music, while Victor watches and is hopelessly charmed. So they're not that different in the end.

“I was right,” Yuuri says breathlessly after several songs. “This is much more fun when I’m not drunk.”

Victor leads him out in a spin, then rolls him back in so Yuuri is facing away from him and curled into his arms. After a brief appreciation of the fact that he is now allowed to hold Yuuri like this, he rests his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder--or tries to. He’s a bit too tall, so it ends up more like pressing the sides of their heads together.

“So you’ll remember it this time?”

Yuuri cranes his neck around to smile and press his lips to Victor’s. “All of it.”

“Get a room,” Yuri Plisetsky jeers from a nearby table. Victor beams at him, purposefully obnoxious.

“We did, Yurio! This one!”

Yuri makes a disgusted noise and goes back to trying to squash as close as humanly possible to Otabek without actually sitting in his lap.

The song changes to something more lively, and Victor twirls Yuuri out of hold completely, releasing his hand. They dance most of the remaining hour, slowing down toward the end when even the impromptu DJ seems to get tired and starts playing low energy songs. They stand pressed together and sway, like they’re kids at prom with no idea how to dance, not world-class athletes who dance on ice for a living.

“I’m so glad we figured this out,” Yuuri murmurs against Victor’s neck.

“Happy you get to keep me?” Victor teases.

“Th-That’s--”

“I’m happy I get to keep you too.”

They sway.

“When you think about it, it’s pretty appropriate.”

“What is?”

“Your theme was love, and you found your soulmate. You could almost say it was fate.”

Yuuri laughs. Victor pulls him in a little tighter. He keeps having to remind himself that this isn’t going to vanish again at the end of the evening, that Yuuri is here to stay. By the periodic long glances Yuuri keeps giving him, he’s doing the same thing.

According to the clock on the wall, there are fifteen minutes left before they clear the banquet hall. At this time last year, they were both too drunk for the memory to stick. Now they’re here.

Amazing, how much can change in a year.

Fifteen minutes. He doesn’t want this moment to end. It’s magical, like the world has turned full circle and they’ve ended up exactly where they were always meant to be.

Fifteen minutes to closing. Fifteen minutes to the hotel room, to planes and competitions. Fifteen minutes to stress and bills and grocery shopping, to arguments and leaps and falls and landings. Fifteen minutes to late nights, to missing sleep, to cleaning up after the dog, to coffee at kitchen counters.

Fifteen minutes to the rest of their lives. Together.

They’ll do it all together.

Victor leads them in a slow turn, tilting his face to rest atop Yuuri’s head. He’ll enjoy this, the slow roll from foot to foot, the brush of Yuuri’s hair against his nose, the scent of his shampoo. He’ll enjoy it for fifteen minutes.

After that? It’s the rest of their lives. And they’re going to do all of it together.

_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE! Special shoutout to tumblr user olennawhitewyne, who sent me the wakeup call I needed to actually get stuff written. This took way to freaking long. I hope the length makes up for some of the wait; this chapter is 8.5k words, over half of the total wordcount of chapters 1-6. 
> 
> THANKS ALSO TO MY BETA!! They are called FaceWaffles, and they do fabulous work. Without them this story would be way less fun and way more confusing. 
> 
> REGARDING MORE FIC: I have a couple of fic for other fandoms that I've held off on posting bc I felt guilty about not finishing this, so I'm going to get those up within a few days. After that, I'm back to YOI. I have several potential works in mind. They'll probably all get written at some point, but I'm going to set a vote for now just to gauge interest. Drop a comment if you have an opinion. 
> 
> 1: Precanon fic, Phichit-centric, covers his and Yuuri's time in Detroit and all their wacky high school/college adventures  
> 2: Postcanon fic, ensemble cast, essentially a drabble series, covers everyone's lives from immediately after the series ends until they're old people. Just a warning, this involves a fair amount of character death because aging is a thing.  
> 3: Canon time span, Victor and Yuuri are cis women. The fic would explore the differences between the au and the canon caused by the genderswitch. Beta advised me to hold off on this fic, but I'm putting the idea out there just to see what y'all think. (Also, if someone has already written this, please drop me a link! These kinds of aus are my jam.)
> 
> I'm on tumblr as chaifighter if you have any questions or just want to chat. Thanks so much for reading, it's been an incredible ride!


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